BIRTHRIGHT
These Words Run In My Veins includes all songs from Birthright’s 1997 and 1998 EP’s Ascension and Out Of Darkness…
Birthright was/is a vegan straightedge band hell-bent on animal and human liberation. All of these songs carry a heavy weight, focusing on the way society views and uses animals, how we abuse ourselves and animals, and turning a blind eye to the subsequent suffering caused by our own ignorance. I’ve always found it interesting how a lot of 90s straightedge bands frame sobriety and rejection of the culture around drugs and alcohol as integral to the movement of animal liberation. The traditional beliefs held around drinking becoming akin to that of exploiting animals, that drunkenness enables the kind of ignorant behaviour that allows consumers to fall for meat industry propaganda, and to buy into it. Birthright keeps it real, talking about the isolation and ridicule they’ve faced for promoting and living the type of lifestyle they live. Even today it is still seen as taboo and weird, or “Extreme” to hold these views.
Birthright’s music still holds up too, almost 20 years later. Laden with groovy riffs and meticulous fills Birthright had their formula down to a science. Coupled with Kurt Schroeder’s powerful lyrics, the message is clear :
ANIMAL LIBERATION!
