Botch - We Are the Romans (1999) Reviews

Botch’s second and final album carries many of the same strengths and weaknesses as their debut.

To start off, the pros:

- The drumming. Lord, the drumming is fantastic. It’s varied, it’s technical, it’s metallic and aggressive, it’s capable of slowing down for sludgy, moody sections. Perfectly tows the line between serving the music and standing out.

- The songs are long and varied, and cover a greater range of speeds than the debut. More prominent are the slower, sludgier sections, which give the music more room to breath.

- The moments they lean towards Atmospheric Sludge Metal are the best. They manage to craft some harrowing atmospheres that actually carry some weight. The best example is the second half of “C. Thomas Howell as the ‘Soul Man’,” which is definitely their best song. The simple chords and double bass drumming at the end are a perfect climax that actually sounds passionate and memorable. Wish the band did more of this.

However, the cons:

- Like the debut, it’s not very memorable. It has no hooks to speak of, neither in the vocals nor music, and that’s thanks to being very inharmonious. The songs are neat when they’re playing, but once they’re done, it’s very difficult to remember anything from them. (Swimming the Channel averts this, hence being easily their best song.)

- The riffs are angular and dissonant. They don’t really… evoke anything, aside from anxiety. It’s not catchy, but it’s also not evil or anything like that. Just kind of uncomfortable, but not in an emotionally gripping way.

- The songs are long and varied, [i]but[/i]… pretty much just swap between slow anxious, fast anxious, mathy anxious… it’s all somehow monotonous despite the variety in playing style. Like, the band can only play one feeling, which is manic discomfort. Which is cool if you like that, but it’d only work for me if the music and vocals/lyrics were more emotional. This isn’t; it’s very abstract both musically and conceptually, so the focus on anxious moods doesn’t evoke anything from me aside from discomfort.

- The lyrics are too abstract to deride much meaning, which is unacceptable when vocals are screamed in this way. There’s thought, but no passion. The final track is basically ten minutes of them saying the same thing over and over.

- The long Drum n’ Bass track closing the album is the worst track. Weak ending.

For these reasons I find the album good, but not great. I can understand the praise, especially among the genre. But I think this is more niche than the ratings lead on: I think you’d have to be pretty into this kind of music specifically for it to click just right.

There's a mathematical pollution in the metalcore air, and it's a great one too! Those patterns needed to work out with crushing sounds and atmosphere that are achieved perfectly, passing by in a way that might make the band frustrated, but they took their frustration out on their sound. This results in the subtle transformations in each song to be executed smoothly while engaging in real angry instrumentation that create a masterpiece. The album speaks softly in the subtle well-written in the midst of punishing technical metalcore/mathcore madness. The album is intelligent and abrasive. It pounds through clouds of dissonant distortion and otherworldly annihilation!

We are the Romans is never over the top. Each and every riff is organic with different variations that fit perfectly. The songs begin and end either differently or the same. The structures are the right ones for every song, with all the riffs, patterns, and harmonies in flawless flow.

The opener "To Our Friends In the Great White North" is just insane!! The riff passage at the two-minute mark is one of the most epic in the history of metalcore, surrounded by walls of dissonance. I'm not lying when I say there's a jazz passage in "Mondrian Was a Liar". You gotta listen to believe! "Transitions from Persona to Object" greatly represents the organic nature of the album. Every riff is played naturally, never forcefully placed, as if the riffs are inventing themselves. After an eerie intro melody, the song continues into its awesomeness, riff after riff, all in a perfect groove mood. The heavy riffs lead to high dissonance in a passage that brings back the lower riffs and vocals. The song ends with frantic discord fading out to a drumbeat. The guitar leads in "Swimming the Channel Vs. Driving the Chunnel" are simple yet frighteningly ominous, building up into one of the eeriest songs in metalcore. Almost the entire song has just that guitar melody with different variations, accompanied by eerie spoken vocals. Soon the vocals stop, but the guitar melody is still going with the drums that fade out as well. That's quite a timid ambient song...

In the next song "C. Thomas Howell as the ‘Soul Man‘", the main riff is interrupted in a brilliant and not rude way by a passage of repetitively eerie high guitar, going solo for a few seconds before the rest of the band joins in. More of the high guitar notes come in a different pattern. The song keeps going until it slows down exactly when it needs to. Then the mathcore action returns in a bang with an epic chord pattern over frantic drumming before the best ever crash and burn. "Saint Matthew Returns to the Womb" will grab you by the throat and twist it with exotic changes and unrestrained riffs until you can't breathe. Same with this next song that I like its original title more, "Frequenting Mass Transit", yet for some reason they changed it to "Frequency A** Bandit". That song's lyrics of ambiguous angst fit into the crushing powerful music like a glove ("Patience is a girl I’ve been trying to forget about").

"I Wanna Be a Sex Symbol On My Own Terms" has vocal-trade offs that make the sure album never gets stale, and one of the reasons why it's impossible for me to not enjoy this album. The 11-minute closer "Man the Ramparts" is the perfect way to end Botch's two-album career. Epic gigantic chords soar throughout its long duration. Soon there's a passage where a choir sings the album's title, "We are the Romans", in glorious grandeur before being overtaken by one more furious devastating riff as a proper farewell from the band members. A grand atmospheric outro to bring this album to a heavy epic end! However, there's a hidden electronic remix of "Thank God for Worker Bees" from their other album American Nervoso which makes me wanna hear the original song.

We are the Romans explodes like a firework and lights up with vibrant colors with loud ear-crushing pulverizing force. Now that's loudness my ears can stand! It keeps happening until...it's over. The album never begs the listener to pay attention, but the listener would be begging for more until they make the sad realization that Botch is forever gone. And if any listeners wonder, "What the h*ll just happened!?", I'll just tell them that they came across some of the best mind-blowing mathcore yet!

Favorites: "To Our Friends in the Great White North", "Transitions from Persona to Object", "C. Thomas Howell as the 'Soul Man'", "Frequency A** Bandit", "Man the Ramparts"