JIHAD: Old Testament

Jihad was from Kalamazoo, Michigan. They were around from 1994-1997 and released quite a few legendary 7"s alongside a monumental split LP. The music is hard to describe in any word other than "intense". There weren't really any bands playing this style prior to Jihad and there most certainly hasn't been any bands since Jihad to play anything remotely similar. Unless, of course, you count the bands that the members went on to form after the dissolution of Jihad. Even in the cases of Quixote and Sealucky, the bands took on a lighter indie rock direction and failed to incorporate the intensity found on Jihad's recordings.

The band released a discography CD of sorts in 1996 called Old Testament on the bassist's label, Makoto Records. It included the God's Forsaken People 7", the split 7" with In Ourselves, the split 12" with Ottawa, most of their comp tracks and a live recording of their set from Cleveland Fest 1995 (which fucking rules).

The Old Testament compilation CD was released simultaneously alongside a 7" of new material entitled "New Testament". This would prove to be the final recording before the band dissolved in 1997 right before they were scheduled to play the infamous Pittsburgh Fest of the same year which featured performances from Four Hundred Years, Puritan, Braid, Quixote, Judas Iscariot, and the infamous Rent America set with the worm temper tantrum.

As stated previously, the "discography" disc only included MOST of their compilation tracks. The one track it didn't include for whatever reason or another was the Longbow Project compilation 12" put out on Longbow Records (a close acquaintance of Makoto Records). I took the initiative to include a vinyl rip of this track as a special Path To Misery Blog bonus track to the Old Testament discography CD. I also chose to include scans of the God's Forsaken People 7" layout because it's just that cool. You can download all of this HERE.

Here is some live footage provided by the legendary YouTube poster "threepennie" ...