Band:	Botch
Album:	We Are The Romans
Style:	Math metal, Metalcore
Release date:	November 1999
A review by:	RaduP

Disc I
01. To Our Friends In The Great White North
02. Mondrian Was A Liar
03. Transitions From Persona To Object
04. Swimming The Channel Vs. Driving The Chunnel
05. C. Thomas Howell As The "Soul Man"
06. Saint Matthew Returns To The Womb
07. Frequency Ass Bandit
08. I Wanna Be A Sex Symbol On My Own Terms
09. Man The Ramparts
10. We Are The Romans
11. One Twenty Two [2022 remaster bonus]

Disc II [remastered edition bonus]
01. To Our Friends In The Great White North [demo]
02. I Wanna Be A Sex Symbol On My Own Terms [demo]
03. Transitions From Persona To Object [demo]
04. Mondrian Was A Liar [demo]
05. Saint Matthew Returns To The Womb [demo]
06. C. Thomas Howell As The "Soul Man" [demo]
07. Man The Ramparts [demo]
08. Saint Matthew Returns To The Womb [live]
09. Vietmam [live]
10. Transitions From Persona To Object [live]
11. Hutton's Great Heat Engine [live]

Few bands were as reticent to reunite the way Botch were, but first releasing a new song and then announcing a couple of shows, and then announcing tours across multiple continents, it's safe to say that Botch are back. So let's take the opportunity to revisit their landmark album and assess that they don't make boybands like this anymore.

It's a very common tale among olden bands that broke up to hear how they didn't really find a place among their local scene, being rather unappreciated in their time, only to find a lot more recognition posthumously. Sometimes that does lead to the bands reuniting to capitalize on that newfound recognition, sometimes it's just one or two of the musicians reviving the name because of the name recognition more than anything else. Botch's place in 90's Seattle was quite a weird one, first because they were actually from Tacoma, a town that's close by but not really Seattle, and second because they went against a lot of the trends of the time, not really fitting in the straight edge hxc wave that was trending at the time, while also going against the, as they described it, "typical skull and switchblade imagery" that was prevalent in the hardcore scene. Tales of them playing pop songs before their shows and of the "Botch: The Best Boy Band Ever" shirts (hence my teaser comment) show a band that lived a rebellion within a rebellious movement. But years later, it's less the antics that remain relevant, and more so the music.

Botch were not necessarily firsts to do some specific sound. Metalcore and mathcore were sounds that were already catching shape by the time they arrived on the scene, even if they were far from the apex of popularity they would end up having, with bands like Lethargy, Deadguy, and Rorschach having already dabbled in mathcore. And with how big of a presence "metalcore" and some related more melodic subgenres had that ended up dominating a lot of the more radio-friendly side of metal and thus still having a bit of a bad reputation among metalheads, and with how far removed Botch is from that sound that's an important distinction to make. Nonetheless they ended up contributing to these sounds at the right time (though that's something that wasn't instantly obvious), and We Are The Romans especially came to be viewed as one of the most influential of its kind. But what about the actual music on it.

Well what set Botch apart were that they treaded the line between the metalcore/post-hardcore sound and the mathcore sound in a way that made their sound take the best qualities of both genres. Much more intricate and unconventional than most of the metalcore of its time but also much easier to follow and less suffocating than something as manic as their peers in The Dillinger Escape Plan. Compared to its predecessor, 1998's American Nervoso, We Are The Romans is even less manic and more restrained, and with a longer runtime it feels like Botch became even more ambitious in expanding their sound. The riffs are neither straight-forward nor chaotic, leaving them in just that sweet spot between the two, and the breakdowns that do appear feel more gigantic than intense in a way. These breakdowns can often act like moments of catharsis in the same way a post-rock's crescendo release can, and there's definitely a feeling that We Are The Romans came from the same contextual waters that also gave us the second wave of post-rock.

Partially because of that restraint and expansion, there's a tangible atmospheric focus on the record. Not necessarily in the same way as the emerging post-metal/atmospheric sludge metal neighboring sound, but one that also shares some common DNA. The heavier moments use that heaviness in a way that feels a bit more melodramatic, the production gives everything both an oomph and some very needed clarity. Plenty of moments go against the intricate metalcore core, either by some Slint-ish moments in "Swimming the Channel vs. Driving the Chunnel" or the choirs in "Man The Ramparts" that sound more like something a ritualistic black metal band would use as an interlude rather than anything hardcore-related. The latter especially has a lot of elements I could pick apart even more, from the moments where the production gets way noisier to those slick bass lines. It is a bit weird to have the recent remaster of the album end with a song recorded more than two decades after the original's release, and I'm torn between whether that one would've fit more on this or on a remaster of Botch's last release, the An Anthology Of Dead Ends EP, which continued We Are The Romans' expansive nature event further.

It's a bit of a shame that the band members didn't see eye to eye (they described the recording sessions for An Anthology Of Dead Ends as tense and full of writer's blocks) and that they didn't get the recognition they deserve. Members went on to play in bands like the post-hardcore Narrows and These Arms Are Snakes, the indie rock Minus The Bear and Roy, and ,perhaps more relevant for our website, the post-metal Russian Circles and Sumac. Perhaps the way the band members sprawled after the band's disbandment explains both why they couldn't really be contained into being a metalcore band, and why they were reticent to return to it. Whether anything more comes out of the reunion is only for time to tell, but in the meantime, even as the band feels like it disbanded too soon, they left quite a lasting legacy, and no entry point to Botch or 90's metalcore in general is better than We Are The Romans.



This has been yours truly's 800th review.