Album Notes

The Wide Awakes are the best kind of rock band: simple, tight, and smart. "Bitter One" has echoes of jam-band intensity with a straightforward and aggressive focus on concise, pop-based songs. Think moe crossed with the Replacements. Lead vocalist and songwriter Tim Bueter is a crafty composer and the band stays effectively in pocket on every cut. Good stuff from a Toledo band that plays with fiery energy.

Rod Lockwood
Toledo Blade

Blistering and melodic...The elements of power pop, blues, hard rock, and Americana are still there, but woven seamlessly into the musical tapestry. Bitter One is a well-honed, rollicking piece of good old-fashioned rock n' roll that should make fans out of anybody with an appreciation for smart lyrics, fun rock and excellent musicianship.

Jason Mendelsohn
Playlist Monthly

"Bitter One" is filled with the kind of raucous, fuzzed-out guitar pop that'll make it seem like the heartbreak summer of your senior year no matter how cold it gets outside.

Keith Bergman
Toledo Free Press


The Wide Awakes are a rock n’ roll band from one of America’s least glamorous cities: Toledo, Ohio.

Nodding with admiration in the general direction of classic Midwestern guitar rock outfits like The Replacements, Uncle Tupelo, AM-era Wilco, Husker Du, and Toledo’s own late greats, Gone Daddy Finch, this band carries on the tradition of pile-driving three-minute power-pop songs that serve up great big hooks, thoughtful lyricism, and clever musical twists, with beverages held high and proud all the while.

While the band could attempt to up their “hipness quotient” by claiming geographic allegiance to the near-by and more fashionable (at least in rock circles…) Detroit rock city, The Wide Awakes are a Toledo band, preferring that any acclaim or accolades that come their way come due to the racket that they make, rather than their specific area of geographic origin.

The urgency in the music of The Wide Awakes harkens back to a once-upon-a-time when there existed this naïve ideal that rock music was communication, that it was an avenue for personal expression.

The Wide Awakes cling to the belief that your sound should not be something that you tailor to meet some niche market, to jump the latest trend, or to make some frivolous fashion statement.

The “sound of today” is destined to be the “sound of yesterday” tomorrow anyway, so you might just as well play something that feels honest.

Music, at its best, is a common something that brings people together.

It’s about people venting their spleens and collecting their own little musical gangs that insulate their lives and keep them from feeling quite so alone in the world.

This is where it starts for the Wide Awakes.

When you add in the years of experience, uncounted false starts, minor successes, major disappointments, musical growth, and the general kicks-in-the-head that the world doles out in liberal doses to hopeful dreamers, you come to the point where the band stands today.

Bitter One represents their second attempt to capture “the racket that their band makes” in the studio.

Consider it an invitation to join their gang…