Although this is the second album I’ve reviewed this week with the title MMX (here’s the first), Michigan sludge bashers Balboa MI use the Roman numerals not as a statement of intent or a beginning point, but the opposite, as a way of marking their end. MMX is a 16-track collection from Hydro-Phonic Records that serves as the final statement from Balboa MI, compiling their original 2007 demo with the blistering New Means to an End EP and a cover intended for the dead-in-the-water Buzzov*en tribute, Unfit to Consume. It’s probably as close to a definitive statement from Balboa MI as we’re ever going to get, and at 48 minutes, it says just about everything you need to know about the band: they were here, they were heavy, they’re gone now. Vocalist Jarrad Collard’s striking line drawing of a snarling dog that serves as MMX’s cover is emblematic of the overall mission of Balboa MI, and after seeing the band live in their home state on more than one occasion and making my way through these tracks, I can only say it’s too bad that mission got cut short.

The immediate reference point for Balboa MI during their time together was always EyeHateGod, and with tracks like “Cousin Fucker” (as opposed to “Sister Fucker”) and “Dixie Jam,” which opens the demo, it seems like they knew it. The difference between Balboa MI and the scores of others under the grip of Bower power, though, is that the double-guitar five-piece never lost sight of what really made EyeHateGod so influential in the first place: the intensity. Sure, the slow Southern riffs are great, but it was the unbridled and filthy hardcore punk that offset them that really helped make sludge what it is today, and Balboa MI are (were) masters of the form. “Acid Rain” (which appears twice on MMX as it was re-recorded for New Means to an End) and the aptly-titled “Hardcore Song” take the feedback-drenched churn of New Orleans sludge’s glory days and give it a flavor of Michigan’s post-economic devastation. Anger is universal, and it bleeds out of Balboa MI’s truncated discography as sincere and frightening as ever.

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Not to be confused with the Philadelphia act of the same name, Michigan’s Balboa — known to the rest of us as Balboa MI — are a five-piece sludge outfit slinging hate like monkeys throw poop. On their new EP, the grammatically incorrect New Means to a End (Eaten Alive Records), they blast their way through four tracks in under 15 minutes, offering a truer representation of the In the Name of Suffering aesthetic than most Eyehategod followers could dream of.

Like that album, New Means to a End has its roots in an evil cousin of punk and hardcore, twisted and molded by time into something more sinister. Balboa MI play their sludge fast (for the most part) and make no apologies about it. There are tempo shifts, both sudden and telegraphed, but their intensity and their fuck-all remain in tact throughout. Before I knew it, I’d been through the EP three times. “Wounds I’ve Sewn,” “New Means to a End,” “One Condom, Zero Hour” and “Black Lung” are each about as visceral as this genre gets, guitarists Justin Collard and Ray Nelson thickly riffing out while vocalist Jarrad Collard screams like a fucking madman across the proceedings.

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As promised the other day, I do have a feature on the badass sludginess that is Balboa MI (not to be confused with the other Balboa, on Translation Loss). Unlike every other feature to this point, however, this one’s on video. I filmed this out back of the Northern Lights Lounge in Detroit with drummer Cletus, guitarists RayRay Nelson and Justin Collard, bassist John Cates and vocalist Jarrad Collard. I also have some live footage I might put up as soon as I find a video editing program that doesn’t blow monkey ass.

In the meantime, be sure to check them out on the MySpace, and as always, enjoy.