Given all they've been through – and put themselves through – it's a wonder that New Orleans's Eyehategod are still walking, let alone releasing new material and touring again. It's been almost 15 years since their first album, and since that time they've been living out subsequent album titles like Dopesick and Confederacy of Ruined Lives (both Century Media). Given their hard-luck history, the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster seemed almost par for their course, and the recent drug-related arrest of vocalist Mike Williams wasn't exactly shocking, either. Yet somehow, through it all, they've managed to release seven full-lengths (including this one), even as their members have stayed busy with other projects: Guitarist-bassist Brian Patton performs in Soilent Green, while lead guitarist Jimmy Bower plays alongside Phil Anselmo and Hank Williams III in Superjoint Ritual.

Preaching the Endtime Message is their first new album in four years, and it's not an official studio album but a hodgepodge of live recordings, alternate versions, and vinyl-only tracks, with three new songs. This is their second such album, following 2000's similarly cobbled-together Southern Discomfort (Century Media). It doesn't really matter, though, because for all the doom metal and stoner rock hacks out there – including several straight-up EHG imitators – there's still no substitute for this band's nihilist blues-metal dirges. Highlights here include "Sabbath Medley," their contribution to Hydra Head's "In These Black Days" 7-inch series, and "Serving Time in the Middle of Nowhere," also present on Discomfort but hands down one of their best songs, with a couple of mammoth Skynyrd-gone-metal riffs.

There's nothing new happening musically on the previously unreleased songs, but judging from Preaching the Endtime Message, the band has lost none of its disturbing power. As for the current tour, Eyehategod apparently are enlisting rotating guests on lead vocals, with Oakland's Jesse Quattro handling the mic for their two San Francisco hurricane-benefit dates. That should be a real spectacle. Eyehategod play the Swampsong Metal Festival, a benefit for New Orleans bands, Fri/18, Studio Z, SF. Also Sat/19, 4:30 p.m., Cyclone Warehouse, 1842 Illinois, SF. starblood7@yahoo.com, swampsong.toravensandcrows.com. (Will York)