Along with the likes of Dillinger escape plan and Converge, the Seattle foursome crafted a music that, although being very complex and aggressive, appealed to thousands of kids all over the world. Odd time signatures, discordant riffs, stop-start structures, surge of noises, high technical level, the elements are known by many. Unlike DEP, Botch never fell for “now is the time for our jazz bit and then we will play some drum’n’bass and then…” In a way, Botch had something of songwriters in them. Well songwriters going mental, for sure…  I actually would think of them as being a hardcore version of Meshuggah.

So Botch is no more. But Botch gave to the fans this little thing… Spaim is 14 seconds of discordant guitar. The real deal starts with Japam, angry and yelling, quite a departure from the usual behaviour of people in Japan… Changing from melodic aggressive riffing to more discordant bits again and again, with “traditional” drumming and a break in the middle that makes me think of some traditional dance, this works like a nice warm-up.

Air raid sirens over Framce. No, it’s not Bruce Dickinson… It’s the guitar warning us that something wicked is on the way…  An “epileptic” song making your arms and legs move frantically while bombers mercilessly crush your mind… Vietmam is a sort of continuation of the previous, only with a more fucked up rhythm, and a more melodic approach. Punishing nevertheless. Afghamistam is very, very different. It doesn’t echo the bombs over Kabul at all. It is actually Botch’s excellent attempt at a very melodic, very calm, very downtempo song.  Clear vocals, straight to the melodic point guitar line, almost no distortion, some violin, some piano. A song that stands out stylistically as well as emotionally. Micaragua is meaner, with its feedback, white noise and guitar delay over no non-sense drum pummelling. 2 minutes into the song, Botch strikes the listener with the heaviest, slowest, most aggressive moment of the whole CD. 109 seconds later, Botch is dead.

An anthology of dead ends is a good epitaph for a great band. If you decide to get this ep, just don’t forget to pick Botch’s other releases…