Between the Buried and Me - Colors

Raleigh, NC natives Between the Buried and Me take a turn for the stranger on this their latest album, Colors. Whether they have achieved holy grail ultimate prog-metal status is, as always will be true in the world of indie-metal enthusiasm, a point of heated contention. They certainly fall shy of now world famous Dream Theater's technical mastery, but this is not at all to say that this album or this band is even remotely concerned with creating simple music that is easy to access, play, or wrap your head around in any way, shape, or form.

Yes shredding has gotten out of control in today's metal word. Ripping guitar licks and double bass pedaling for the sake of wowing one's audience into shock at precision and skill is a way of the past now. As such, speed metal, thrash metal, other such shredder jock genres, and the insatiable quest to play riffs with the highest possible note density, are all on their little retro fast track to the grave of artistically irrelevant fleeting blips on the "art" metal radar screen.

So enter this new Between the Buried and Me. They absolutely satisfy your musical proficiency expectations and then some. They bring the shred and they bring it hard. Lead guitarist Paul Waggoner and second guitarist Dustie Waring both have it down on this album. Their playing is, at times, blisteringly fast, perhaps almost flashy, weaving in and out of complicated time signatures, highly syncopated and mind-numbing rhythmic patterns, chord changes, majorly contrasting but fundamental aesthetic motifs, tones, and styles. But they can slow it down, be thoughtful, and whip up some sections that are frankly transparently gorgeous.

Blake Richardson totally hangs with them the entire way on drums, tying together disparate riffs, nailing all of the guitarists' syncopation with the appropriate ornamentation and rhythmic detailing, busting totally legitimate blast beats in all permutations (Euro, Straight, Split, Gravity, you name it), locking in on fiercely precise double-kick drum, etc. He's a metal drummer with an obvious background in hyper-technical death metal and prog. So he's got a lot of taste, feel, and musicality in his arsenal as well as the necessary but nevertheless physically heroic machinist technique required of serious death metal drummers.

But we can't leave out the work of vocalist Tommy Rogers on this album. As far as death metal vocals go, he's not a purist at all. He doesn't really growl in the traditional sense but rather has this breathy guttural low scream. He utilizes a similar technique for his high screams, which are powerfully wrenching and absolutely unique when he pulls of epic decrescendos and sighs. He has some just straight up wacky Mr. Bungle (Mike Patton) what the hell am I supposed to be feeling right now vocals as well that just leave any doubts you had about Rogers' vocal prowess at door. Rogers has no problem layering multiple different types of vocals simultaneously either.

Did I mention that he sings in like 10 different voices on the album? There are some sections that stink of Opeth, Black Metal melodic vocals, etc. He also nails this very ethereal high register vocal with almost no vibrato that channels Danish and Norwegian psych, almost female sounding. He's also got this whole Slayerish ranting yell that he'll belt out in some particular raw and simplistic classic metal sections of the album. He nails punk as well.

This album is extremely episodic, and that's part of their style. They weave in and out of this odd vaudevillian flow of "proggy" sections that borrow elements from Latin music, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Deftones, Pantera, Mike Patton, the Beatles (most blatantly on "Sun of Nothing"), Transyberian Orchestra, and yes absolutely Queen. The list of influences and styles on this album is truly prolific, but they manage to make these genre switches make sense in the context of BTBAM's own classic "stop and go", repeat insane death metal riff refrain several times, build intensity each time, cut the drums in half-time for a hardcore "breakdown" right before launching back into gnarly speed-picking, blasting, and double bass that sets BTBAM firmly in the metalcore genre. The album no doubts represents an impressive smorsgasbord of musicality. The band's concept is inherently creative, but its well-researched rock and metal scholarship as well.

But perhaps their most lovable quality is that you are always left with the sense that maybe they aren't completely serious about all of this genre-meshing despite the obvious commitment to it that their music naturally and instantly reveals. They have become known for their ironic musical sensibilities since their first major release "The Silent Circus" started off with two and a half tracks of this new blistering hybrid of technical death metal and metalcore, followed by a few minutes of you might mistake for a mellow Blur song, followed by some more brutal BTBAM, followed by an entire song of utter pop goopiness, followed by half a metal song and then a fully-fledged pop song featuring the refrain "It all makes sense / We're capable of beauty." Couple that with the band's inter-LP just-for-fun release of "An Anatomy Of", a cover album that features some hilariously and almost disturbingly spot on vocal and guitar impressions of Pantera, Depeche Mode, Metallica, Soundgarden, Blind Melon, Counting Crows, Motley Crue, King Crimson, Faith No More, Smashing Pumpkins, Pink Floyd, and one particularly and alarmingly good vocal impersonation of Freddy Mercury in Queen's "Bicycle Race."

BTBAM is definitely moving in a direction that fully embraces their varied influences. If you saw them live on the "Colors" tour, they played the entire album through from start to finish. They've become more comfortable than ever in this new circus style of "to hell with your getting comfortable listening to this song and forming any expectations at all about where it's going" prog metal. These guys have become a major influence in the latest wave of American art metal (yes this does exist) and are well on their way to turning some major heads and changing some minds in the prog scene. Enjoy!

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