Botch, 'One Twenty Two'

Botch will break your brain and inevitably cause you to break stuff. In the '90s and early 2000s, the Tacoma, Wash., band turned metallic hardcore into a dangerous game of daggers — sharp angles, twisted riffs and ferocious barks all somehow contained within moshably mathy grooves. Now, 20 years since its breakup — with several bands since formed (Minus the Bear, These Arms Are Snakes, Narrows) and joined (Russian Circles, Sumac) — Botch has returned with an absolute bruiser of a track.

Included on an upcoming reissue of We Are the Romans, the entirely new "One Twenty Two" feels like an old muscle car revved back to life. Dave Knudson's spindly-but-burly guitar riff anchors the chaos as the rhythm section (bassist Brian Cook and drummer Tim Latona) gives the anthemic stomp swaggering purpose. But it's that combination with Dave Verellen's fiery maw that returns Botch to its proper pioneering stead.

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