It’s only been a small blip of a career, but the things that they have accomplished over that short span is nothing short of incredible. From working with Atomic Action!, to teaming up with the legendary J. Robbins, Bitter Branches has only shown us a small sample, yet have solidified themselves in more way they could have imagined.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” admits drummer Jeff Tirabassi. “We have been pleasantly surprised with everything we’ve done so far. That’s great!”
Their sophomore album, Let’s Give the Land Back to the Animals, is due out March 6 via Equal Vision Records. This album is a follow up to their 2022 debut record, Your Neighbors Are Failures, where they were just trying to get their feet underneath them. Now, almost four years later, those feet seem to be firmly planted.
“It took a while, but everybody’s got their own things to manage,” admits Tirabassi. “We just did [this] in the best way that we could. It worked out. There was a little bit of time spent between getting the music tracked and then when the vocals started. It just really took on a different kind of tone, and it really worked out to be what it was meant to be.”
Their debut album was very stark, and white and black, while this one is black and white, the opposite. Thematically, there’s a brain to it, a veritable cohesiveness. The songs they create stem from certain influences and they realized what worked on the first record led to an evolution with their latest attempt.
“All of a sudden, you get the initial idea, and then we all just give them some feedback,” shares Tirabassi. “The guy (Singer) just nails it every time. It’s great because he’s intimately involved, obviously, with the lyric creation. But there’s a lot of imagery and symbolism that you can mine from both Dan and Tim’s lyrics. Tim really looks at that as a general kind of umbrella.”
Even though this band started in 2020, it is made up of veterans from the 90s punk / hardcore scene. Tirabassi (Walleye), vocalist Tim Singer (Deadguy / Kiss it Goodbye), guitarists Matt Ryan (Calvary) and Kevin Sommerville (Lighten Up), and bassist / vocalist Dan Yemin (Paint it Black / Kid Dynamite / Lifetime), are a formidable group. All it took was a bit of time to find each other, and oddly enough, some were at the same daycare / Pre-K, now as suburban dads. The rest fell into place shortly after and they were off and running, until the COVID-19 pandemic stepped in the way, but didn’t stop them one bit.
“We had Bandcamp, so we threw the demo on [it],” explains Tirabassi. “Then people, everybody was looking for something new out of this weird new reality we were in. It was just one of those things, and it hit and then it really kind of spiraled.”
Boy did it spiral. The moves have been made, the work has been done, and now it’s time to reap the rewards. Five years in, but with decades upon decades of experience, Bitter Branches is at the forefront of what they’ve been working towards their entire lives. The next step is right around the corner.
“When you’re younger, when you first start playing, you play whatever shows you can,” says Tirabassi. “Then later, you get wrapped up in a cycle; get the album out, do this tour, then a smaller tour. It allows you a lot of flexibility and allows you to pick your spots a little bit better. Those experiences helped us get some gains in perspective.”
Let’s Give the Land Back to the Animals is out Friday, and you can preorder it from Equal Vision Records. Follow Bitter Branches on Facebook and Instagram for future updates.
Photo Credit: Michelle Mennona
