Eyehategod material prior to the arrival of vocalist/violator Michael Williams is scarce. The band was a significantly different beast. A bunch of Southern burnouts with an offensive name bent on playing painfully slow. Securing the band's embryonic "Garden Dwarf Woman Driver" is like procuring the Holy Grail. A stubborn allegiance to the Melvins, a subtle nod to Southern rock (this should not be lost on any discerning fan) and Williams' harrowing, fragile and drug-addled dedication to art.

The album's mix of feedback, screeching, crust and noise resounds almost a decade later as requisites in the scene. Williams oft-copied stream of consciousness lyrical style is borrowed almost slavishly by bands wanting to do something a little "different", and the conceptual blending of hardcore themes (misogyny, poverty, murder) and doom metal ethic (disregard for all speed limits) left fans of both genres baffled. But don't sweat the little things. The sewer-dwelling sounds of this debut will not appeal to a wide cross-section of music fans. In the Name of Suffering is a fairly passionate excursion into the depths of catharsis for the rejecters and rejected exclusively.