WE ARE THE ROMANS

Botch played what they call mathcore: take a particularly loud,heavy, and fast take on shred metal and then add more complex time signatures and fast changes than any average tech death band could ever handle. The result is one of the hardest genres of music to ever get into, but those who can listen to it are rewarded with a hardy challenge and a quick moving succession of complex wonder. And bowing out right when The Dillinger Escape Plan was getting started cutting albums, Botch did so with "We Are The Romans", the cream of the crop of the genre. Some of the fastest, tightest, and most complex metal ever was forged by the trifecta of Knudson on guitar, Cook on bass, and Latona on drums. Each played their instruments to the fullest, without flaw. They run rampant through ten tracks of atomic power, each uniquely titled. How can you pass up tracks called "Man The Ramparts", "C. Thomas Howell as The Soul Man", and "Saint Matthew Returns To The Womb"? The epicness and strangeness of these titles is lived up to by the music. Nothing, not even Dillinger, compares. Excellent. Transcendent. The very pinnacle of shred metal.