From its inception, The End and the Beginning was meant to be the most hopeful and acoustic-sounding Drownbeat album yet, and that is exactly what it has become. Unlike the first two Drownbeat releases (which utilized many different songwriters and vocalists), The End and the Beginning was written by only two people: Dan Milligan and Bill Acuña of Chicago’s Despotic Hall of Fame. In addition, the lengthy list of performers was replaced with a small group of musicians, giving it a much more intimate and band-like feeling than the first two albums. And while it’s not necessarily a “concept album” in the traditional sense, the songs on the album are very tightly bound together with a common theme. The result is Drownbeat’s most consistent musical offering to date.