Three leagues deep into their moderne reconstitution southwestern Germany-based thrash metal trio BITTERNESS sport chunkier grooves and some of their most direct to neck songcraft on this largely front-loaded eighth full-length album. That is to say that much of the potency found on ‘Hallowed be the Game‘ is glommed within the first half and soon after loses its focus, escaping the well-rounded profundity of their previous LP. Though it doesn’t satisfy as a full listen it nonetheless more completely escapes their evolution away from melodic death metal tinged thrashers, taking on a more neo-thrash informed sound.

Bitterness have been around for ~twenty five years having undergone very few line-up changes since forming in 2001. They’ve long been known for an initially rough style of Bay Area/German thrash metal inspired work which would eventually include some interest in melodic death metal (starting around ‘Sweet Suicide Solutions‘ in 2003) not entirely unlike Kreator in the early 2000’s as their work had first paired with the melodeath/thrash trend of the late 90’s/early 2000’s. The peak of that sound was probably ‘Genociety‘ (2009) for my own taste, their most reasonable attempt at the melodic side of things before leaning toward neo-thrash starting with 2015’s ‘Resurrexodus‘. For the average listener there is no great need to cruise through the band’s whole discography unless their prolific 2000’s era sparks interest, particularly the releases done as a quartet as they’d face a somewhat generic revision per that sixth LP. If nothing else these folks have been entirely consistent before and beyond that perceived pivot point iterating to a high standard which is uniformly dedicated to thrash metal. Those standards are yet upheld here.

‘Hallowed be the Game‘ is the second spawn beyond Bitterness‘ 2015 paradigm shift and iterates directly upon their generally well-rounded seventh LP (‘Dead World Order‘, 2020) which I’d given (middling) brief review at the time. This time around their blurring of the lines between Bay Area-inspired sounds and Teutonic thrash appears aimed at a late 80’s/early 90’s classicist bent not only per their straight forward, not-so congested compositions but for the sake of writing songs rather than riff-stringing exercises. Guitarist/vocalist Frank Urschler (Stormhunter) maintains a sort of Mille Petrozza-meets-Zetro sort of snarl, lending strong characterization to their largely politico inspired lyricism and particularly as they introduce this sound with opener “WWH8” and roll towards the ‘Pleasures of the Flesh‘-heated “Hypochristian”. The impact of the album heavily depends on the chugging grooves of those first three or so songs as key momentum with “Amok : Koma” acting as the most memorable highlight on the way through.

In fact each of the first five songs here have some manner of hook applied where a gang-shouted chorus (“High Sobriety”) or tank-treaded groove (“Amok : Koma”) earmark Bitterness‘ otherwise standard approach as a cohesive and at-times inspired series of pieces compared to the broader-set leanings found on their previous album. While this still speaks to the neo-thrash tendency to make “caricature” out of classic thrash patternation and voicing they’ve still created some notable brain-worming presence and righteous flow throughout, gaining intensity amongst increasingly short and fiery pieces on the way out. This energy runs low nearby the title track (“Hallowed be the Game”) before the melodic punk jogger “Losing” misses its intended profundity and tracks as filler beside an inadvisably lengthy, uneventful ~8 minute instrumental beyond that point, ensuring The second half of ‘Hallowed be the Game‘ is mostly flotsam. The bland Michale Graves-era Misfits cover tacked onto the end doesn’t work for my taste.

There is a solid EP’s worth of high-grade modern but backward-seated thrash metal to be found on this latest Bitterness effort, songs which’re far catchier than they’ve any right to be in some sense, but no question that the album peaks between standout “High Sobriety” (incl. guest vocals from Gerre of Tankard) and the equally memorable “Win-Windustry” both of which feature lead guitars from former Blackend guitarist Michael Goldschmidt, a presence which brings some attention toward the lack of guitar solo-flung action found on the rest of the album. It definitely feels like they’d front loaded the album with a decent kill streak but dropped rank just as quickly on the second half, making for fading interest on each successive listen. Die-hard fans of thrash metal, especially those who’d gotten on board with the sub-genre in the post-millennium era, should appreciate ‘Hallowed be the Game‘ outright but for my own taste their tank is only just half full this time around. A moderately high recommendation.

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