HOLY FUCKING MATH ROCK BATMAN! This is just incredible. Allow me to summarise this record in this simple diagram. :
MUSIC<------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->NOISE
[botch are here somewhere /\]
Don't let that throw you though. This is crafted noise. Cataclysmic? Yes. But also carefully cultivated and constructed, and probably a few other words beginning with 'C' as well. (Classy maybe?). These guys have to be full on working REAL hard to be able to put this sort of stuff together.
Just imagine their practices:
"Now we'll put this bit here and play it for seven minutes"
"What bit?"
"This bit"
"Oh okay, this bit"
"No, that's THAT bit"
"That bit?"
"I mean THIS BIT!"
"OHHH!! When do we play it again?"
"After this bit..."
We are the romans is certainly a very abrasive record, almost unlistenably mathy at times. Yet there are also some beautifully quiet, intricate parts. Like the middle part of 'swimming the channel vs. driving the chunnel'. Or the quiet bit just before the Crescendo in 'C Thomas Howell as the Soul Man'. (Take note kids, that's what's known as a TASTEFUL use of bass distortion). Yet thankfully, while they're doing the math thing, Botch manage to avoid getting self indulgent and boring.
But forget all this, the bit that totally makes this CD for me is the monastic chanting of 'we are the romans' at the end. Even the secret track on this rocks. Okay, so it's pretty heavy listening. But it's also - from a songwriting, arrangement, production, and everything else viewpoint - fucking brilliant. If you wanna challenge your ears (ohhhh, I can't BELIEVE I said that) then get this.
10 songs, digipak.