botch - american nervoso

.:: Originally recorded in 1998, this is Botch's debut full-length and first Hydra Head release. It features white-hot guitar action, scathing vocals, sweet bass moves, and torrential drums, smashing existing precepts of hardcore and redefining both the word and the music for a generation of matinee kids and grizzled vets alike.

Here it is, a decade later, "One of the most revered hardcore bands of the last decade, Botch pioneered the math-metal school of rock with song structures so complex and musicianship so virtuosic the Seattle quartet might as well have played classical music"

So few hardcore acts have had the grit and grand vision to rise up through that atypical sound the genre is known for. To arrive somewhere beyond the blast-beats and the tired, cliche forced-aggression at a destination a little more scenic. To inject a certain amount of personality and innovation, or at the very least a clear sense of honesty.

The late-great Tacoma, WA outfit Botch were at the front of a revolution in hardcore that welcomed the magnetic draw between inspirations; punk, metal, and...progressive rock. It's all far more complicated than that, but at it's core American Nervoso contains the spirit of a thousand different ideas drawn equally from influences far and wide, but mostly from the impassioned 'do-it-yourself' attitude pervasive in hardcore scenes everywhere.

Much of American Nervoso is focused on creating a sort of spiraling, never-ending mudslide of sick, twisted melodies and razor-sharp technical brutality. You can listen to a song so many times before you're able to discern every nuance, every clever trade-off and how so often the vocals create a direct wall of noise against the music, straining the listener's attention span and demanding closeness with no exceptions.

It all very much sucks you in, and every track is a lecture in the proper approach to and usage of the mathcore mentality. Think early DEP and Converge, and then forget it because you're only touching on 1/1,000 of American Nervoso

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