Falling In Love With the Wrong Embittered

Miserably inspired death metal

I was supposed to be writing a piece about the metal band Embittered for the Chicago Reader. Unfortunately, it turned out that there are several metal bands called Embittered, and I somehow latched onto the wrong one! I only figured it out after I’d written the piece. I am not the brightest tool in the shed.

So…I will be writing about a different Embittered for the Reader. But I really love this Embittered, and I have this short article so…I figured I’d share and maybe a couple of you will be interested in this band I wasn’t supposed to write about but accidentally fell in love with.

Also the whole premise of the intro is maybe undermined by the fact that more than one band has this name! But fuck it; I still think “Embittered” is a solid thing to call your metal endeavor.

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Falling In Love With the Wrong Embittered

“Embittered” is a stupendously splenetic name for a metal band, and This Failed Endeavor—the Tallahassee foursome’s 2025 self-released album—is a stupendously splenetic name for a metal album.

Nor are the band’s talents restricted to nomenclature—Embittered’s mix of death metal, hardcore, and grunge packs a mean-spirited, visceral punch, with unexpected serrated hooks slashing out of the grating roar. Vocalist Bryan Washer projects a malevolent charisma through the throat-rending gargle, and drummer Cody Thompson is a monster, adding unexpected accents and fills and stuttering voices like a weird extreme metal Keith Moon. “End of an Error” bizarrely echoes the melody of Johnny Cash’s “Jackson”, sped up, covered in murk, transposed to a minor key, and with lyrics like,

We’ve been fucked from the beginning
we’ll be fucked until the end
the fucking human race
is on a downward fucking trend.

“Devoid of Meaning” shows the band can change pace if they want to, interpolating chiming doom-death passages amidst the hardcore ranting to create a slow/fast manic-depressive dynamic that Kurt Cobain and Black Francis would appreciate. And “Kill Crazy” is so catchy you’ll find yourself cheerfully singing/ranting along to “Now you motherfuckers are shit out of luck!” Abandoning all your hopes has rarely achieved such levels of slavering cheer

Death’s deliberate aesthetic of dehumanization can lead to a certain sameness; one moldering corpse is hard to distinguish from another. But Embittered’s name, their songwriting, and their musicianship all molder with a feral intelligence and an undeniably distinctive personality. This Failed Endeavor is adamantly not a failed endeavor; on the contrary, Embittered will restore your faith in the creative potential of misanthropy.

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Obviously, I have no one to blame but myself for scrambling my Embittereds. The newsletter does provide a cushion for when I trip and crack my chin on the sidewalk in this manner though. So, if you feel pity for my foolishness and/or want to shield me from my own incompetence (and/or if you want more newsletter death metal content) becoming a subscriber would help. It’s $5/month, $50/year. Or you can tip me on paypal.