DOWN WILL ROLL ON WITH NEW ALBUM; IS THIS A GOOD THING?

Billboard reports that Down aren’t even close to being done with their current touring cycle on last year’s Down III: Over the Under. The band is currently on the road in Europe supporting Metallica and headlining off-dates, from where bassist Rex Brown reports that Down “is all our priorities now,” and that the band has plans for a full spate of touring in 2009 as well as a new record shortly thereafter.

Though more Down is never bad, I’m not entirely convinced this news is such a good thing.

Down has always been so great precisely because the band has never been the primary focus of its members. Down has always been the wild-card band, the side-project that kept Phil Anselmo from Pantera, the amalgamation of southern sludge rock superpowers, always the “will they or won’t they?” question when it came to making new music. So Down as a main project doesn’t quite compute. NOLA worked because it was so unexpected, new, and raw at the time; Down II was an unexpected success and welcome relief because it had been so long; and the perfect storm of events that led to the creation of Down III have been well-documented, namely Hurricane Katrina and the passing of Dimebag Darrell. A new Down record in 2010, one that’s planned well ahead of time just seems… like it will be forced, and probably won’t live up to the greatness of their earlier work.

I loved Down III and naturally I’ll follow anything these New Orleans metal vets do; but right now the prospect of a Down IV seems unappealing to me. At least until 2013 or another hurricane, whichever comes first.

-VN