Customer Reviews

American Nervoso

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

whoever wrote the last review and gave this cd one star is a complete retard and needs to go be trendy, wear tight pants and eyeliner. for starters, it is not possible to be a real norma jean fan without liking botch, considering they cite botch as one of their biggest influences. so do converge and a mess of other bands. in addition to this, comparing the agony scene to botch is like comparing the killers to depeche mode...there is no comparison, and the agony scene is the most generic metalcore band on the face of the earth. so kill yourself, whoever you are. and those of you who are looking for good music to listen to, check out The Power And The Glory, BOTCH, Isis, Cave-In, Converge, Norma Jean and Old Man Gloom

Botch always seemed to generate mixed reviews, for some reason, and by looking at other people's reviews on here, it seems that nothing much has changed. Let me start out by saying that this album is one of the best of the incredibly inventive mid to late 90's hardcore scene. Before this album came out, I was familiar with Botch through various 7" releases and compilations, but it wasn't until this album came out that they started taking their chaotic structures to new heights. This is when they started to come into their own, definately. At this point, they started to mix more experimental elements into their already great, noisy and chaotic style. I remember seeing them live back in '98 with Jesuit and being blown away by both Jesuit and Botch. I wound up seeing Botch 3 or 4 more times before they called it a day, and they were great every single time. Their sets were very chaotic, filled with lots of guitar pedals and strobe lights hooked up to various drums that were sure to send an epileptic into a seizure. Every time I hear this album, I'm reminded of the good ol' days before hardcore meant MTV2 tours, eyeliner, and bands that are essentially clones of Drowningman.
If anybody out there likes their hardcore unpredictable, angry, chaotic, and noisy, be sure to pick this album up, 'cause it still remains one of my favorites from an era when there were alot of great hardcore bands, not just a couple good ones in a sea of clones.

american nervoso is an amazing album. all tracks shine with urgency, focused precision and painful attack. botch has the control and the power to play this complex music. the songwriting is great, the vocals are sung/screamed like he means it, the guitar is impossible. this is stunning.

Fair enough, norma jean are influenced by botch, so its unlikely that you can like one, yet dismiss the other. But please, to the guy below me, dont try and make up facts yourself. Converge influenced by botch??? Call me crazy, but it its kinda hard to be influenced by a band that started over 5 years after you.

I personally prefer we are the romans to this release, even though its still a worthy pick-up. Its just as abrasive as any other noisecore slab you have in your collection. Check out AODE too.

I bought this CD about 4 or 5 years ago, and just pulled it out again the other day. At one point, I was a huge Botch fan, but I preferred We Are the Romans to this disc. In retrospect, I still prefer that album, but American Nervoso thankfully lacks the toughguy posturing that somewhat mars its successor -- it's an album that better illustrates a sense of humor and disdain for self-importance.

Dave Knudsen's guitar playing has always been pretty interesting in a Greg Ginn- or Robert Fripp-on-crack sort of way, especially on "John Woo" and "Hutton's Great Heat Engine." Though his work on this album sort of pales in comparison to his work on We Are the Romans ("Transitions From Object to Persona" comes to mind). Nonetheless, there are some real gems here worth checking out.

A couple of things have always bugged me about this disc, however. My biggest gripe is Tim Latona's drumming here is really sloppy (see the opening of "John Woo"), especially in comparison to their later work. Of course, that coupled with the spotty, Steve Austin-esque production (my other gripe) may please some people, particularly punk fans (I've gained an appreciate for grimy production and sloppy playing over the years). I was always really surprised that Matt Bayles produced this disc, though, since a lot of it sounds like it was committed to a four-track casette recorder. It's not so much the lo-fi quality this disc has, however, as it is the inconsistency between tracks -- tracks like "Dead For a Minute" and "Thank God For Worker Bees" fall just short of the glossy production of We Are the Romans, but "Spitting Black" and "Oma" sound very tinny. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, just very uncharacteristic of Matt Bayles.

Overall, though, this is a good disc and I do recommend it.

Botch destroy the notion that punk is dead and that all the classic hardcore bands are better than the present lot. Botch takes the musicianship of Die Kruezen and slams it into a Black Flag heavy riffage. Forgot about those stupid reunion shows of has-been punk bands and see what damage is being done on this disc. Note: the lyrics are cryptic at best and stupid at worst.

This is an amazing album. It is innovative and intense. I wish I had discovered their music before they broke up.

This is by far my favorite Botch album. For any fans of bands like Converge or Burnt by the Sun than you NEED this album.

It has the same sort of weird feel as Mastodon but a lot more vicious.

Track highlights for me would be "Hutton's Great Heat Engine" and "Spitting Black." Check these two tracks to get a good feel for this album.

Highly reccommended.

themike is dumb. this album sounds nothing like a steve austin produced album. it sounds nothing like converge or deadguy (may they rest in peace like the legends they are). none the less this album is badass even if deadguy slaughters them and eat their remains. botch is a great band and i feel they have the hydrahead sound, but that just means that the band is brutal and very heavy while being experimental at times (hardly any hydrahead band sound the same, they can all be easy identified by their unique styles). anyway american nervoso is a wickedass album crammed full of heavy, wigged out, and even some psycedelic parts. a must have for any metal head. PS-'screaming with the deadguy quintet' and converge's 'when forever comes crashing'do not sound the same.

i really mean what i say. when i think of some of my favorite hardcore records of the nineties: Rorschach's protestant LP, merel's LP, the first spazz LP, Groundwork's "living in fear" 7" (to name a few), American Nervoso is up there for sure. This record appeals to me in many ways. They, of course, have inluences (i would say they are a late nineties version of early ninties spastic, heavy hardcore), but they sound quite unique. Very crazy, all over the place, and EXTREMELY heavy, with some guitar riffs that are so heavy and loud i can't do them justice, all the while maintaining a groove.