Botch was an American mathcore band that formed in 1993 in Tacoma, Washington. The band, featuring Brian Cook, Dave Knudson, Tim Latona and Dave Verellen, spent four years as a garage band and released several demos and EPs before signing to Hydra Head Records. Through the label, Botch released two studio albums: American Nervoso (1998) and We Are the Romans (1999). The group toured extensively and internationally in support of their albums with liked-minded bands such as The Blood Brothers, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Ink & Dagger and Jesuit. Botch struggled to write a third studio album, and in 2002 the group broke up due to tensions among the band members and creative differences. Hydra Head posthumously released an EP of songs the group had been working on before they split titled An Anthology of Dead Ends, and a live album documenting their final show titled 061502 in 2006.
After Botch broke up, most of the members went on to form or join new bands in the Seattle/Tacoma area including: Minus the Bear, Mouth of the Architect, Narrows, Roy, Russian Circles and These Arms Are Snakes. The complex tree of interchanging band members among these newly formed groups has been described as "incestuous."
While Botch received high levels of acclaim from several music publications and was cited as an influence among numerous hardcore bands in the years following their break up, the group was initially cast aside by the local Washington underground hardcore scene. The group spent their active years "poking fun" at the local music scene by avoiding common hardcore clichés. Botch composed complex music later to be known as mathcore opposing the simple "chugga-chugga" riffs, they were unique in terms of presentation, opposing common norms of what was accepted in the underground community. Overall, the band, avoided the common "skull and crossbone" imagery, and wrote lyrics that were abstract and about personal experiences opposing the common political or straight edge lyrics of their peers.
