It seemed as if Stressball had been long forgotten in the sludge metal canon, but some late night Googling has revealed otherwise.
The band has one of those names that can easily be buried in non-relevant search results. However, I was able to find a bit of coverage at the VonFrostBlog, and (of course) there are always plenty of copies of the disc on eBay.
I purchased my CD copy out of a bargain bin (much as others did) after pondering the album art for a while following its release . The cover combined low-budget Dali emulation with a logo font you’d expect to see in an Arts & Crafts ad. Also, the band looked nowhere near as tough as Crowbar or EyeHateGod (the other NOLA heavies of the time).
They certainly do deliver some mean, snaky, unrelenting metal, though. It’s almost closer to Confessor at points than any of the many stoner groove sludge acts. Stressball’s sound is appropriately tense and paranoid, with unique vocal character.
With a little a bit more research, I also found their later ‘Above The Surface‘ demo available at the awesome ‘The Way It Was‘ demo archive.
Give ‘Stressball‘ a listen.