Live Review : Botch + Great Falls @ New Century Hall, Manchester on March 22nd 2024

It is unlikely that you would know of Botch before their improbable resurrection last year. They only visited this country once in their previous existence and never got north of Nottingham. Neither of their full-length albums, “American Nervoso” and “We Are Romans” particularly sold well. However, every bugger that did get the honour of hearing the latter release went off and formed a band. You see Botch continue that fine lineage of acts you've never heard of that begot hundreds that you very much have.

There is a real air of expectation within New Century Hall and the melting pot of accents gives away the fact that people have travelled from all over the country to be here (this time around this is the most northern they are going). The audience is made up of an interesting mix of those who have discovered the band after their 2002 demise and a sizeably smaller contingent of those who fell in love with them at the time. However, the simple fact is no matter when people became aware of them, this reunion and these three UK shows are a massive deal indeed. 

Due to the venue hosting not one but two shows this evening, Great Falls are shoved on stage at a little past seven when most of the audience are still finishing their pre-gig pints elsewhere. They specialise in a highly intelligent and intrinsically deconstructed version of noise core. To the uninitiated, this may well feel like a disorganised cacophony of unconnected sound. But what it actually is, is a beautifully and meticulously orchestrated endeavour, where every movement and judder is stage-managed to create that particular sonic reverberation.

Noise rock can sometimes be quite cold and disconnected. But with Great Falls there is a real warmth and humanity to their performance. They are using the medium of waves of crushing sound to explore the fragility and mundanity of their own lives. It is extraordinarily affecting and enticing and their unwavering and emotive performance draws in the rapidly filling room. Their performances is given further depth by the addition of Lillian Albazi, who has flown over to join the band for the final three shows of the tour. Her bewitching voice provides a real nascence to proceedings. A flash of light within the turgid darkness concocted up by the other musicians on stage. Distracting, thoughtful and thoroughly disarming, Great Falls provides a welcome antidote to the wallpaper music we get fed on a daily basis.

If we are honest nobody is really sure what to expect with the return of Botch. The reports from those who caught them at Hellfest were good, but given that they were gone for over 20 years and anybody who does say they saw them back in the days is probably lying, we are in real virgin territory when it comes to the Botch live experience. Thankfully for those of us who have been eulogising about their brilliance, they turn out to be a remarkable live proposition.

The sound is pristine from the off and the band just explode off the stage in a flurry of jagged angular sounds. ‘To Our Friends in the Great White North’ is an incendiary opener, full of bile and righteous anger. They may well have only started performing together again two years ago, but what we witness is a fantastically tight unit that is in harmony with itself. The tensions that tore themselves apart seem to have been laid to rest and what we get is four musicians in total synchronisation with each other, understanding how to eke the brutality out of every note.

No sooner has Dave Verellen entered the stage that he is off it, conducting the front rows in a cacophonous rendition of the refrain “It's your fault, fucking up the kids”. The whole moment feels spine-tingly special, and you can feel the entire audience relax and take an audible sigh of relief and exclaim “Bloody hell they are good”. As you would expect the front becomes a reverberating cauldron of flailing limbs. Brian Cook apologizes for the fact that there is a barrier between them and the audience and puts the blame for this solely at the door of the venue. But the inability to stage dive doesn't seem to dampen in anyway the atmosphere that builds during the performance.

The band rush through the set at a breakneck speed. It is only when we get to ‘Oma’ and its lilting piano refrain that we get any opportunity to take breath. The stark minimalism of Tim Latona’s haunting interlude on the keys provides a stunning juxtaposition to the relentless intensity that has preceded it. But this lull is only temporary and with ‘Thank God for Worker Bees’, the histrionics are once more ratcheted up, with David V back down in the pit sharing vocal duties with the front row.

Brian Cook has visited our fair city numerous times in his latter-day incarnations of Russian Circles and Sumac. He relays the joy that his band members and himself feel in finally bringing Botch to Manchester and the musical legacy it represents. That joy is the primary emotion that comes across when you watch the four of them interact. Joy that they are finally able to give Botch the send off it so richly deserved. Joy that the songs that they cultivated as mere kids still mean something to thousands of people.

This is not a soulless reunion begrudgingly undertaken to add a few zeros to their collective bank accounts. As they tear into tracks from the “An Anthology of Dead Ends” EP, which in the main were never performed live at the time, you can tell that they see this as unfinished business. This is blazingly obvious with the gorgeous ‘Afghamistam’ which opens the encore. Its lo-fi insular intricacy feels like a path not trod. A brave new direction that the band could have gone in if they had continued. Tonight, it is absolutely astonishing, a majestically introverted distorted torch song that hushes the entire room.

But the band had been very clear that this reunion is a full stop as opposed to a new dawn. As they reach the concluding dual crescendo of ‘C. Thomas Howell as the Soul Man’ and ‘Saint Matthew Returns to the Womb’, Dave V thanks us all for coming out one last time and, sweetly, thanks the other three for having him back in the band for this final hurrah. They then proceed to unleash the bowels of hell. It was these two tracks that captured imaginations the world over when we individually unearthed “We Are the Romans” and it is these two tracks that take this whole evening to another level. Untamed brutality wrapped up in a startlingly complex web of juttery convulsing riffs that utterly intoxifies. An almighty maelstrom of undulating sound that proves beyond doubt the utter genius of this band.

We want returning underrated heroes to be as good as the intervening years have made us think they are. If we are honest with ourselves, in the main we are let down. But tonight, Botch prove that they deserve every iota of their posthumous praise. They prove that they were an incredibly special band fuelled by integrity, inventiveness and musical precision. If this is indeed the end (and we have no reason not to believe them) then for years to come those gathered here tonight will be able to gleefully proclaim that we were there.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Botch, Great Falls