Bitter Grace is a

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

goth rock Gothic rock (also called goth rock or simply goth) is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie an ...

band active since around 1985. Formed by Gustavo Lapis Ahumad in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, the band is known for their live set that includes lighting, smoke and theatrical effects. Plagued with consistent line-up changes over the past two decades, the band still plays throughout Manhattan with the current line-up of Gustavo Lapis Ahumad (vocals/guitar), Pay-Dro (drums), Marcus Pan (bass/backing vocals) and Brandon (guitar). Bitter Grace has played numerous clubs, but concentrate mostly in

where they are located. They've taken the stage at

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in the East Village, Manhattan, East Village in Manhattan, New York City. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for ''Cou ...

, the Gallery, Club Rare,

Downtime In computing and telecommunications, downtime (also (system) outage or (system) drought colloquially) is a period when a system is unavailable. The unavailability is the proportion of a time-span that a system is unavailable or offline. This is ...

and Rothko's in recent years.

History

Bitter Grace was formed by Gustavo Lapis Ahumad in 1985 and almost immediately began playing live throughout

. The line-up of the band was constantly evolving and for reasons like this it took over ten years for the first album, God and the Abyss, to finally be released and distributed by Middle Pillar Presents. The album itself was touched by numerous hands, with multiple drummers, bassists and guitarists being involved until its mastering and release.

Recent

The current line-up has changed already over the past year with Thad Jasonis leaving to join New Vile System in

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

. He was replaced by the returning Brandon who played guitar on the recordings of Shimmer prior to leaving the state. This new album, another seven years in the making, is due to be released in the early reaches of 2006. Previously released singles from the album, "Shimmering" and "Slave", have achieved college air play and Internet radio play in the summer of 2005 when they were officially released. The 2005 live shows found Bitter Grace playing throughout Manhattan prior to the release of the new album. On September 18, 2008, the band announced on their MySpace that ''Shimmer'' will be released early 2009, and they are currently working on the third album entitled ''Critical''.

Evolution

The release of "Slave" and "Shimmering" have shown that Bitter Grace have laced an industrial and EBM style into their previous

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...

goth rock style on God and the Abyss. Live sets have started to incorporate more lighting and shadow textures for a highly theatrical affect opposed to previous garage-style shows done in the early years.

Discography

Studio albums

*'' God and the Abyss'' - 1997 *''

Shimmer Shimmer Women Athletes (often referred to and stylized as SHIMMER) was an American, Chicago-based independent women's professional wrestling promotion which held its first event on November 6, 2005. Established by Dave Prazak and run by both him ...

'' - 2005 *'' The Burning Sun'' - 2012

Further information

Official Bitter Grace SiteBitter Grace on MySpace
{{Authority control Musical groups from New York City American gothic rock groups Musical groups established in 1985 1985 establishments in New York City