4 out of 5

Label: Hydra Head

Produced by: Jake Snider, Wes Weresch (recorded by)

A collection of Botch’s first EPs – The John Birch Conspiracy Theory and Faction – which had further singles and unreleased material appended to it, with that version later rereleased by Hydra Head.

What’s your preferred Botch jam? Were you there from the start? Did you jam to the punkier American Nervoso, or did you get on board with the mathcore landmark We Are the Romans?

It might be helpful to bear that in mind with this collection, as early Botch does differ from where they ended up, starting out very much as hardcore punk before bringing in some post-rock breakdowns, then finally shifting over to all their time signature complexity and stylistic shakeups. As Unifying Themes Redux is mostly focused on material from those starting years, that’s logically the sound towards which it caters; I’d say it’s not until about halfway through that you hear Botch’s final form take shape.

However, that’s also one of the most satisfying things about this set: because it’s moderately chronological, you can literally hear the progress; take note as the group’s songs start to get more sonically interesting. Thankfully, though, even the material leading up to this point is valuable: while the earliest EPs are the most basic, and their recordings the most rough, there’s already a sense of playfulness there that would’ve made the tracks noteworthy, even way back then – earliest signs of the group butting against the norm. Fueled just by the energy of those songs, when even more confidence kicks in, it’s incredibly satisfying, carrying over to the latter half of the disc where chugga-chuggas and intricate cross-playing start getting dotted in.

So the largest learning curve here is probably for Romans fans, as nothing directly connects to that era, excepting some of the poorly recorded extras at the end (‘Sudam,’ which I imagine is from Anthology of Dead Ends era but doesn’t add much to those songs, and a long live cut), but assuming you’ve probably at least picked up and enjoyed Nervoso, after the culture shock of a seeming lack of Botch-isms in the first few songs, you’ll probably be tapping your toe to the general vibes… then swept up in how quickly the group started to iterate and evolve.