review: Bitterness

Bitterness

Dead World Order

G.U.C.

15 May 2020

A beloved life-long thrasher the other day showed me a metal publication’s list of what it called something like the 25 greatest thrash albums. The list was ok, with the usual suspects, but the list did not include a single album after 1990. Apparently, the greatest thrash means 1980s thrash, and no thrash band has ever, ever made a single album better than ok-third-rate bands like Vio-Lence, Tankard, and Nuclear Assault. The conclusion to be reached is that no thrash band after 1989 has ever surpassed the “greatness” of songs about drunk zombies by Tankard or the comical joker TV news of Nuclear Assault.

Has thrash been dead for 30 years and the bands that play thrash today are nothing but poor-man’s thrash copies of copies with no skills, no talent, and nothing good to offer, not as good Vio-Lence or Tankard? The year 1989 was the end, apparently?

What about thrash today in 2020? This is thrash band Bitterness from Germany. Metal Archives says that this is album number seven and that they formed in 2001. I have never heard any of their previous albums, not that I recall at this moment. The band has plenty of headbanging mosh pit songs. They also have some songs that show a contemporary understanding of melodic extreme metal. In both cases they are good things. They use some cool midtempo moments, like on the title track. It works out well. After listening to the album a few times, you realize how much variety there is within the sound of the band as a whole. They seem to be trying out some different things: the band seems a bit ambivalent about what to do with their non-thrash ideas. For instance, the album begins with a nice clean introduction but has very little connection to the first song. Another example is the beautiful instrumental at the end of the album. Finding ways to make these things an integral part of the thrash songs would add an additional dimension their old-school/new-school sound. Like most thrash bands, this has harsh scream-shout vocals (not singing), not very different from Destruction, Exodus and Overkill, for a street metal vibe. Ultimately, the various ways of spicing up the thrash keeps the album interesting, especially for the devoted fans of today’s thrash.

Bitterness - A Bullet A Day (Album "Dead World Order")

facebook.com/bitternessthrash/