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Bottler

Rotten Routine

Written by: MAK on 13/01/2016 14:55:51

With a scene that is dominated by the ever growing popularity of pop-punk, it is incredibly refreshing to find bands that produce the Epitaph/Fat Wreck Chords style of punk rock that I loved during my teens. Bottler fall into this category so hard that I automatically thought they came straight out of the Californian punk scene. Note my surprise when I realised these lads are my fellow countrymen. London-based trio Bottler released their EP “Rotten Routine” in 2015 as a huge improvement to their 2014 release “Smithereens”.

UK punk bands have gradually improved in sounding American over the years, I remember listening to Essex Pop-punk trio Koopa ten years ago and thinking they sounded exactly like Blink-182 until the vocals kicked in, the accent was so British it hurt. Now it is like most punk and pop-punk bands from the UK have developed American accents and for some reason, it just works better. Take Dave’s vocals from Bottler, for the most part, he sounds like Matt Skiba from Alkaline Trio. The voices sound so alike that the chorus for opener track “Rotten Routine” could easily be mistaken for an Alkaline Trio song.

Bottler provide that skate punk vibe, distorted riffs, fast and simplistic half time beats with effective fills and insanely catchy choruses. It’s like I’m listening to punk from the early 2000s again. What is even better is that it doesn’t sound dated. “Death Wish Cyclist” sounds just like a 30-second version of Morning Glory’s “O' Where in the World Is Alice Baldwin”, again it has a high tempo and a hooking vocal melody that even if you don’t pick up on the words, you’ll start humming along.

“Rotten Routine” a fun little EP, the downer perhaps is that it only lasts for fifteen minutes. You start to get into the infectious hooks and then it’s over so quickly. A great thing about the album is that it sounds like it is influenced by the various avenues of punk, from the straight up raw punk, joyous pop-punk, ska punk and even going a bit New Wave/post-punk by covering The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” and giving it that Epi-Fat vibe. Production wise, “Rotten Routine” is a vast improvement on its predecessor “Smithereens”, and even though it still sounds quite raw in places, the sound on this latest release sounds far more professional.

Download: Rotten Routine, Death Wish Cyclist
For The Fans Of: Alkaline Trio, Morning Glory, Brawlers
Listen: facebook.com

Release date 04.09.2015
Disconnect Disconnect Records