Day Of Suffering - "The Eternal Jihad"

This North Carolinian vegan straight edge band got it's start under the name Falling Down, who released a 3 song 7" Life Before Machine on Savannah, Georgia's Even The Score Records (see picture below) in mid-1995. Then something profound happened: they changed the name of their band to reference Morbid Angel, added guitarist Rob Townsend, probably started to take themselves a bit more seriously, and got really, really fucking good. The Eternal Jihad was released on Kurt Schroeder's Catalyst Records (or was it XcatalystX?) in 1997 and, quite frankly the scene just wasn't ready for this album. These dudes really liked death metal, and they didn't hide this fact at all. This to me was pretty great because quality osdm is still one of my favorite things ever.

 Equal parts old school death metal riffage ala Grotesque, Gutted or Schizophrenia-era Sepultura, and 90s vegan-edge politics (even though they take a decidedly anti-abortion social stance, we won't hold that against them), the band's only full length absolutely smokes from start to finish. Seriously, there's a lot of headbanging to be had here. Although they didn't sound anything like them, they shared a similar unapologetic attitude to fellow 90s veganXedge stalwarts Chokehold. I always recommended this to hardcore kids who wanted to dip their toes in good metal without actually stepping into the pool, or metal kids who wanted to test the waters of 90s hardcore. Recorded in *gasp* Syracuse, NY, this is Catalyst Records #06. Great Shit.

-life begins to flourish in renewal-

Tracklist:
1) The Eternal Jihad
2) Shades Of Red
3) Elegy
4) Engulfed In Darkness
5) Condemned To Fire
6) Visualize Industrial Collapse
7) Pawn
8) The Rising Of The Tide