Roy is going to get billed by most everyone as "ex-suchandsuch," as the band is a bit of a supergroup, at least in the Northwestern scene. Roy features former Botch members Dave Verellen and Brian Cook [who is currently splitting time in These Arms Are Snakes], as well as Dave's brother Ben [who is the frontman of sludge-garage-rock band Harkonen]. Now Botch is virtually legendary up in the left hand corner of the US, and the other two bands mentioned are currently building a bit of buzz individually, so hearing what the members of this band moonlight[ed] in will definitely perk up some ears.

Wow, this review reminds me so much of my Onalaska review from a few months back it's ridiculous.

Anyway. Roy sounds nothing like Botch, so don't expect to see some crazy hardcore stuff going on in these 5 tracks. Roy is instead more akin to a lot of the late 80s/early 90s alt-rock movement [for a complete list of influences, see Our Band Could Be Your Life]. Roy's sound is simply this - grungy yet poppy rock songs that bring to mind the Pixies more than anything else [especially the "Where Is My Mind?" ripoff of "The Bolivian Army Lays Siege To Seattle"].

So the music's not revolutionary, but the lyrics are incredibly introspective and personal. A good portion of this disc seems to be about Verellen's friends' drug addictions. Sure, it's sung rather sardonically, but I still believe every word that falls out of his mouth in a classic Northwestern drawl [reminding me of Doug Marsch, just lower pitched].

So as I mentioned before, don't go into this record expecting the musical history of these guys to repeat itself. It all pretty much boils down to this - if you're still into Mudhoney and treasure your original Sub Pop singles collection, pick this up.