Bitter End
Bitter End (EP) 2003 No Label
New Castle, Delaware is a charming, historic town south of Wilmington. A town full of history. A town for tourists. I should know, I stopped there once myself. Somewhere in the bowels of New Castle, however, there's a filthy basement with a bunch of Rebreather and Alabama Thunder Pussy showbills taped to the wall, broken beer bottles on the floor, and ashtrays full of roach fragments lining the tables. That`s where Bitter End does their best work, because the atmosphere fits them so damned well. This accomplished three-song EP is full of nasty distortion, heavy grooves, complex rhythmic changeups, and spiced with bitter, no-bullshit lyrics. Hell, two out of three songs end with vocalist Shane screaming "Die!" "Die!" Well, we know we're having fun because we're stoned as lords and somehow it just sounds so right. These guys have a driving, sludgey sound equally tempered with southern badness and doom. Think the above-referenced Rebreather meets Sourvein meets ATP meets Weedeater meets Pale Divine. Bitter End would be a nice match for Relapse or the like. The sound quality of Bitter End's disc is unusually good, and the musicianship is top-notch for what is, after all, a demo. It`s nice to know that even Delaware is capable of producing a band with all the sludgey goods. Oh, and I don't really know what Bitter End's rehearsal space looks like: that was just a guess. It`s called artistic license, heh heh.	1. Still Dead 2. Necessary Nightmare 3. Fueled by Filth Approx. 23 minutes
Reviewed by: Kevin McHugh