Line #5 Music/Botch


1	Botch, a band from Tacoma, Washington, were pioneers of the genres of {{metalcore}} and mathcore, and are considered co-{{Trope Maker}}s/{{Trope Codifier}}s for both. They released two albums, a number of [=EPs=] and splits, a live album, and a collection of odds and ends.
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3	!!Core discography
4	* ''The Unifying Themes of Sex, Death and Religion'' (anthology, 1997)
5	* ''American Nervoso'' (full-length, 1998)
6	* ''We Are the Romans'' (full-length, 1999)
7	* ''Unifying Themes Redux'' (expanded release of the above anthology, 2002)
8	* ''An Anthology of Dead Ends'' (EP, 2002)
9	* ''061502'' (live album, 2006, recorded [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin June 15, 2002]])
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11	!!Members
12	* Brian Cook - bass
13	* Dave Knudson - guitar
14	* Tim Latona - drums
15	* Dave Verellen - vocals
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17	!!This band provides examples of:
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19	* ActualPacifist: The sample at the start of the WFMU version of "Third Part in a Tragedy" is of Creator/BenKingsley as Film/{{Gandhi}} indicating that he refuses to use violence, but also refuses to obey the British government, even at the cost of imprisonment, torture, or death: "Then they will have my dead body - but not my obedience."
20	* AlbumIntroTrack: "Spaim" on ''An Anthology of Dead Ends'', which lasts for a mere fourteen seconds.
21	* AlbumTitleDrop: For ''We Are the Romans'' in "Man the Ramparts".
22	* CoverVersion / RockMeAmadeus: They covered Carl Orff's "[[Music/CarminaBurana O Fortuna]]", Music/TheB52s' "Rock Lobster", and Music/BlackSabbath's "The Wizard". The former two of these are on ''Unifying Themes Redux'', but the latter will probably be more difficult to find, as it was only available on a vinyl split with Cave In (who for their part covered Sabbath's "N.I.B.").
23	* CulturalCringe: The title of ''We Are the Romans'' refers to the band's belief that America is the new Roman Empire and is headed the same way.
24	* EpicRocking: "Man the Ramparts" is the most notable example at almost ten minutes in length (it has a minute of silence at the end that pushes the running time up to 10:55). They have other examples as well. The hidden track on ''Unifying Themes Redux'' runs 20:42, but it's comprised of several songs stuck together.
25	* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: ''061502'' is a live album titled after the date on which it was recorded (June 15, 2002, the band's final show).
26	* HiddenTrack: ''We Are the Romans'' has an unlisted remix of "Thank God for Worker Bees" (from ''American Nervoso''). ''Unifying Themes Redux'' also has an unlisted hidden track that consists of several separate songs; according to Discogs, it's a live set performed for the radio station WFMU.[[note]]The track listing given is "Third Part in a Tragedy", "God vs. Science", "Ebb", "Baseless Spine", "Closure", "Stupid Me", "Dead for a Minute".[[/note]]
27	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Every song on ''An Anthology of Dead Ends'' is titled after a country, but with the n's in the country name changed to m's (i.e. "Vietmam", "Afghamistam", "Micaragua"). One of the songs on ''Unifying Themes Redux'' ("Sudam") also follows this pattern; apparently it's an outtake from the same sessions.
28	* {{Instrumentals}}: "Sudam", amongst others.
29	* LimitedLyricsSong: Most notably, "Man the Ramparts", which lasts for nearly ten minutes and contains a grand total of sixteen words, repeated several times.
30	* LiveAlbum: ''061502'', a recording of their final show on [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin June 15, 2002]].
31	* LoudnessWar: While not the worst cases ever, their albums are pretty squished.
32	* MetalScream: Their primary vocal style.
33	* [[OneSteveLimit One Dave Limit]]: As seen above, averted.
34	* PunBasedTitle: "Frequenting Mass Transit" (from a split with Murder City Devils) got corrupted into "Frequency Ass Bandit" on ''We Are the Romans''.
35	* {{Sampling}}: They sometimes use quotes from films or television shows to open songs, especially live.
36	* SopranoAndGravel: Most of their vocals, as mentioned above, are metal screams, but occasionally they use SpokenWordInMusic or clean singing. The most notable example is the faux-Gregorian chant near the end of "Man the Ramparts", which has the band performing a choral arrangement of some of the lyrics (mainly the album title, repeated several times over). When performed live, this was moved to the beginning of the song (presumably because, due to the large number of overdubs it required, it wouldn't have been possible to recreate live, and it would've been difficult to transition to a tape of the chant section in the midst of the song).
37	* SurprisinglyGentleSong: "Afghamistam" and "Swimming the Channel vs. Driving the Chunnel".
38	* TropeMaker[=/=]TropeCodifier: For mathcore and metalcore alongside Music/{{Converge}} and a handful of others.
39	* UncommonTime: They are known as mathcore for a reason. A few examples: The beginning of "To Our Friends in the Great White North" alternates between 4/4 and 5/8 time, the opening of "Contraction" is in 5/4, "Frequenting Mass Transit" has a riff in 7/4, and "Sudam" is... ''complicated''. There are undoubtedly a lot more, though.

Context Music / Botch