Review by SilentScream213 for Botch - We Are the Romans (1999)

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.