Review: Botfly - Lower than Love
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| Label: No Funeral Records |
When you're extensively listening to music you sometimes have to take care of yourself for not over-saturating. There's always this risk of becoming dulled when you shove music down your own throat, no matter what. What really makes "it" worthwile are original bands, bands who try to take a new approach. BOTFLY out of Halifax/Canada certainly fall into that category for me.
These guys made their full length-debut in 2017, after releasing some tapes and splits. Now it took them four years to come up with the follow-up. As they say themselves: "The love and hurt we poured in to this record is greater than anything we've done before, and we believe it shows throughout". I too believe.
BOTFLY not only share the first three letters of their name with the legendary BOTCH, I seek some similarities in their style as well. At times, this is some cool, groovy "Old School" progressive Hardcore-stuff, with twists and turns, but just like BOTCH used to do it, not all too spazzed-out and chaotic. I probably gotta correct myelf, cause BOTCH sometimes did it. BOTFLY never do it that way. And I like that. These guys would be able to write 10-minute-epics with atmospheric bits, time changes and breaks galore, but instead of jerking off on their own talent, they write songs. Great songs. Songs that are between two and four minutes long, conclusive in itself, but thoughtful when it comes to the bigger picture. In terms of vocals, the bark also kind of reminds of Dave Verellen, but BOTFLY don't rely on that. They also use more high-pitched screams and even clean vocals, and combine these different voices pretty clever, as you can hear in a song like "Reflect//Reject".
BOTFLY also take a lot from the old AmRep- or Touch&Go-style, maybe the most from SHELLAC and THE JESUS LIZARD. In fact, Noise-Rock probably is their base and from there on they modify. And boy, how they modify! The 5th track is called like the album, "Lower than Love". And it's some sort of power ballad, that explodes near the end. That song is traditional in structure, but very elegant and really striking in his deliverance. If that wasn't enough, the emotional lyrics, who deal with depression and heartaches, add another layer to the whole album. This is something you would've expected from Emo or Screamo and honestly, before hearing anything from "Lower than Love", I directly associated them with this scene, only because of their label No Funeral Records. So, in a way this collaboration definitely makes sense...
The title track also is a game changer for the album. From there on BOTFLY incorporate more and more melodies into their sound and it's for the better of it. These melodies are fucking moody and even add something to faster, more aggressive songs. I too dig this slight 90s-Grunge-/Alt-Rock-vibe coming from the mellow parts.
After throwing around all those genre-stereotypes I feel kinda bad, cause BOTFLY just have their own sound and I can't come up with one band that is close to them. It's diverse stuff, yet only in details, cause the overall feeling of "Lower than Love" is extremely coherent. Nonetheless it's a fucking clash of styles at times. Personally I couldn't imagine that Noise-Rock/Noisy (Post-)Hardcore fits with emotional, personal lyrics and sensitive, reduced melodies as easy as it does here! A song like "Déjà Vu" is a perfect example, starting off with a short atmospheric bit, before moving into SHELLAC-ish, stoic beats, who interplay with some Postcore-drama, an epic melody and the pivotal line "I wish you knew how much that I missed you, I wish you could see how much that you mean to me". Why not combine the serenity of Noise-Rock with the fragility of Emo? It's brilliant, but unusual and therefor very fresh.
As a fan of all these styles, I cherish BOTFLY's "Lower than Love". It's a dense and thoughtful put together album from a band that has its own vision. Check this out, especially if you like sharp contrasts in your music.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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