BDTD 151 bitter defeat
second release from Bitter Defeat band.. the raw rock gets a psych-treatment.. a return to the shonky Brisbane rhythm - Debut recording for this amazing Australian underground group that features Matt Kennedy of Kitchen’s Floor and Matt Earle of Craft Bandits/xNoBBQx/Breakdance et al: formed in the wake of the death of Brendon Annesley in order to “keep busy, to vent our frustration and to keep from killing ourselves” this is as you would imagine a fairly harrowing record with jump-cuts into semi-silent activity and unidentifiable improvisatory nada compounded with hysterical weeping/screaming/FX-deformed vocals and what sounds like a partially erased tape of a random Breakdance rehearsal. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out the group move into a slow-mo sludge/drone bass zone that comes across like the solo album Mik from Kousokuya never made with single notes dropped into great vats of feedback before the full band kick in, with Merriah Geles of Negative Guest List on drums, Andrew McLellan of Greg Boring on bass and Josh Watson of Sewers on violin playing in a collapsing universe style that is somewhere between Tokyo and Christchurch in terms of wildly dislocated rock. Fantastic. - C. David Keenan 2011