Live performance:***** Times Seen:4
Between The Buried & Me (2002)-8.6
The Silent Circus (2003)-8.8
Alaska (2005)-9.6
Colors (2006)-9.8
The Great Misdirect (2007)-9.8
The Parallax EP: Hypersleep Dialogues (2009)-10
The Parallax II:Future Sequence (2012)-9.8
Coma Ecliptic (2015)-9.5
Genre 1:Progressive Metal
Genre 2:Progressive Death Metal
Genre 3:Progressive Deathcore
Genre 4:Post-Rock/Post Metal
Genre 5:Grind
For Fans Of:Dream Theater; Liquid Tension Expiriment; Animals As Leaders; The Contortionis; Cynic; Haken; Devin Townsend; Original Prog; Weird music; Weird interludes; Epic clean singing; Good breakdowns; Technical music; assloads of talent.
Formed In:2000
Status:Touring with August Burns Red, The Faceless and Good Tiger
Label(s):Lifeforce—>Victory—>Metal Blade
-Discography Overview-
Between The Buried & Me’s debut self titled album…here we go. If BTBAM was a swimming pool, this album is where the water was murky as hell. It’s clear that the band wanted to play heavy groove, not unlike some of the Death Metal and Deathcore bands playing around this time. But deep inside this murky pool, we see there is a desire to create Progressive music, although back then you’d have to dive pretty deep to find it. The self-titled album is still a solid release. I firmly believe BTBAM has never released a bad album. From start to finish, the album doesn’t bore despite being packed the hell out with breakdowns. Once we get to “Aspirations”, you get a slight taste of the weird things that BTBAM likes to do with their music. You also get a proggy outro that will truly be a template for them to expand upon later. At this time, only Tommy Rogers and Paul Waggoner were in the band. After about 2004, the present day lineup is finalized and the band becomes notably more prog. As far as heavy albums go, you don’t find much that are better done than this album and Silent Circus. The seeds of something great are there, in “What Have We Become” we hear a riff at the end that sounds like it’s off the TGMD. Once you listen to “Fire For A Dry Mouth” you hear the duo of guitarists shredding just like they will do when Alaska comes by. “Shevanel Cut A Flip” is the finale of this album, and the song that really sets BTBAM apart from any other breakdown using, groove throwing metal band around at this time. Just because the water is murky here, does not mean it isn’t a great place to swim. This album also comes in handy on a gym playlist and is highly reccomended.
Silent Circus was actually one of the last BTBAM albums I listened to. I simply did not know it existed until about three years ago. I guess it got deleted from my Itunes. Even still, I didn’t give it the time of day it deserves until writing this review. (Can’t remember the last time I listened to it in full.) Anyway, it starts off right where the debut left off. Heavy, groovy death metal. The first few tracks are pretty much like the second evolved form of tracks from the self-titled album. If you want to write heavy, powerful songs, this album should be your textbook filled with excellent examples on what to do. Once you get to “Mordecai”, things get real. This song from start to finish is one of the sharpest songs on this album. Along with similarities to the debut, BTBAM also has a clear cut backtrack to the first album with a new version of an old song titled “Shevanel Take 2″, which effectively acts as an album interlude.Then it comes right back into the action with “Ad a Dglgmut” which I consider one of the other top-tier songs on the album. The guitars in this song are absolutely on point, and then you have more prog writing and Tommy Roger’s clean vocals as the topping to the delicious death metal dessert. The remainder of the album consists of some cool parts and some more okay parts. After this album, BTBAM gets an updated lineup, and these changes affect them in the best of ways. Prepare for Between The Buried And Me’s beginning of realizing their full potential below!
Alaska starts off with “All Bodies” and right away you can tell this is a new breed of music. The recording quality has improved, and the composition has followed with it. Immediately, “All Bodies” throws some tasteful riffs at you. Then you have the first section of clean vocals that you will want to be yelling at the sky! Then in the bridge before the breakdown more awesome riffs and pounding chugs backed up by orchestral parts. Tommy shows off his range at the end of this song, and it might leave you with goosebumps. This song is such an exemplary BTBAM song, that I can write an entire paragraph on it alone. To me Alaska is the beginning of a new golden era for BTBAM. Here they have a clear cut idea on their songs and what they want to do with them. All of the songs fit perfectly together making this album feel truly coherent and complete. Next up is the title track “Alaska”, which starts off truly shreddy, then it reverts back to the sounds of the last two albums. Tommy’s gutteral vocals in this album definitely sound like they’re from Silent Circus, but the guitars and drums are on a new level. This is the first album with Blake Richardson behind the kit and it shows. Then we are up to “Selkies:The Endless Obsession” or Selfies:The Endless Obsession if you will; and this album starts off sounding even more different than the other tracks. Why is this? I believe this song is a Colors song that didn’t even know it yet. You’ve got a powerful dual guitar intro, that leads into some quiet singing. When we get into the interlude at four minutes in, you’re transcended into a beautiful BTBAM dimension already. You have heard top-tier song writing. A piano brings you back into the action, and the song begins to speed back up again. Instead of another fast paced breakdown, the song simply fades out leaving you wanting more. But don’t worry, you’re not even halfway done yet. BTBAM gives you a peaceful interlude track called “Breathe In, Breathe Out” obviously for you to stop hyperventilating from excitement. Next up is my least favorite BTBAM song ever written. “Roboturner” hurts this album for me in many ways. It starts off good like any other Alaska track, but then it does something I’ve never felt about a BTBAM song…it drags. I’ve never wanted a song by this band to end before I listened to Roboturner. It’s a shame too, because a lot of this song is cool up until the outro. Once you get to 4:26 the song should have ended. Instead it starts back up about 40 seconds after some bass. That’s fine and dandy, but then we have two entire minutes more of the same riff. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a joke since BTBAM does have a sense of humor and it keeps ending making you think it’s done, but it just isn’t. It can almost be redeemed by the sheer droning on, but I just can’t bring myself to like it. It ruins “Roboturner” for me. The only bright side is the last three seconds set up the next track “Backwards Marathon” which is the longest song on the album. I think “Backwards Marathon” best represents the album Alaska. It’s the perfect mix of heavy and prog music.I also believe it’s the album’s climax. All of a sudden an interlude drops and out of nowhere you’re on a sunny beach. But then it’s starts raining. It’s raiiiiining. It’s raiiiiiniiiing. Like a bass drop BTBAM gets right back into it. After more than 8 minutes, the song finishes up and we move onto “Medicine Wheel”. “Medicine Wheel” starts off sounding like just another interlude, but it quickly proves you wrong. It’s a beautiful song that can and will stand alone, (while playing the part of a second interlude of course.) Alaska continues on this formula, then we have the heavy riff bombardment that is “Primer” and “Autodidact” then the album finishes off with “Laser Speed” “Laser Speed” is my favorite instrumental BTBAM song around, and I think it’s a nice finishing touch on the epic album we call Alaska.
Colors is widely viewed as the peak of Between The Buried & Me, and a trademark album in progressive metal. This hour plus long album starts off with a slow piano intro and then breaks out into the fast-paced technical metal you love. There is a perfect transition into “(B) The Decade of Statues”, these songs simply flow right into one another. It’s truly like a modern day Pink Floyd. Right before you hit two minutes, the songs slows down with clean singing and the first of the tasty riffs you’ll hear throughout this masterpiece. A lot of heavy fast paced breakdowns will hit you before you even know it. It’s like “Hey we’re the same band that wrote Alaska but now we’re even proggier.”. At 4:30 you have absolute shredding and then an epic finale to the first real track of the album. Next up is a deep almost tribal song. “Informal Gluttony” starts off with a drum and chant. It’s definitely got a jungle vibe to it. Then powerful bass and a riff almost reminiscent of Ancient Egypt kicks in and the song becomes an extreme metal song with blast beats. More heartwarming clean vocals and more of the things you love in “Informal Gluttony”. If you’ve never listened to the next two tracks on Colors, I don’t think you’re a real BTBAM fan. “Sun of Nothing” and “Ants of The Sky” are some of the best songs ever written by the band. They’re prog classics. When you have a chrous of “la la la” and pounding tidal waves of riffage, you know you’re a unique band. “Sun of Nothing” can pretty much best be described as an epic track. These songs also ensure that BTBAM is a near-impossible band to label musically. They experiment more and more. At this point in the album, if you’re not floating towards the sun, then I don’t think prog metal is for you. In “Ants of the Sky” the band pushes the limits to what they can and cannot do even more. The drums are extra technical, new instruments are played, more cowbell and so on. Then the songs has it’s own interlude within itself. This makes “Ants of the Sky” feel like three tracks inside of one. That final interlude always made me think of chickens chillin’ outside a desolate pub. Creating imagery through music is super impressive. Next up is “Prequel to the Sequel” which goes by very quickly at only eight minutes. I hardly know jack shit about guitars, but the ones in this song are my favorite. I think the heavy riffs are expertly placed, and I think the soloing is beautiful. There are amazing harmonies that soothe the ears. Before you even realize “Prequel to the Sequel” is finished, an amazing bass solo/interlude track calms you down right before the finale. Tracks like “Viridian” makes me sometimes almost wish BTBAM was an instrumental post-rock/math rock band. After that song is done, a remarkable intro guitar lets you know “White Walls” has begun. If you’ve seen BTBAM before, you know very well what’s happening. This song is commonly BTBAM’s closing finale. This song tends to be a fan favorite, because the end is so god damn heavy. I personally, am kind of sick of it since they’ve played it ¾ of the times I’ve seen them. Although, from what I understand, the solo at the end is also as insane to play as it sounds, so I’m sure that counts too. Then, as it began, Colors comes to an end with Tommy’s beautiful piano playing. Your face has been melted, but wait, there’s still more to come.
On to The Great Misdirect we go. More like the Great Misunderstood, this album is easily one of BTBAM’s most underrated, typically only getting love for Swim To The Moon. This album has the least amount of tracks of any album, but that’s not to say it is devoid of content. It is perfectly packed with zero filler baby. It starts off fantasticaly, with “Mirrors”. “Mirrors” is another beautiful, unreal BTBAM track. The drums, bass, guitar, and singing all blend perfectly. It’s sort of hypocritical for them to sing “everyone grows but me” when they grow and progress every single album, rising above other prog bands in the genre seamlessly. From soft and beautiful, we geat the heaviest track on the album, “Obfuscation”. This song, like many others, flies by before you even realize nine minutes have passed by. The interlude at five and a half minutes seems, almost incredibly, as if BTBAM took it straight from their next album The Parallax. It has a real spacey feel to it, with a lot of soloing on the bass and guitar. “Obfuscation” ends like it started, with a lot of yelling parts that compell you to yell back out, thus it is one of the coolest BTBAM songs you could catch live. “Disease, Injury, Madness” starts off very fast, like it’s trying to contradict me and be the heavier song. And maybe, just maybe, in the sense of vocal work it is heavier. It also has an interlude that I feel like BTBAM used to reinspire themselves when writing the Parallax. Unfortunately, it’s as if they’ve fallen into a formulaic pattern, but if you’re not over analyzing song structures, it still sounds great and believable. The background sounds in this song, prod you to remember “Mirrors”. Then when you think the song is done, it starts back up as if the second half were a completely new TGM track. In fact, the only reason why this is still the same song is probably a four letter word. (Prog). After some farm riffs and another solo, the song gets heavy again, interludes, then has a cowbell filled outro that keeps the TGM vibe going. You also get some more LA LA LAs, possibly a nod to Alaska, possibly just some fun lyrics to sing in falsetto. Then the song ends feeding directly to the happy piano intro of “Fossil Genera–A Feed From Cloud Mountain”. This song adds another new genre that BTBAM has used/created and it’s done expertly on this track. The drum fill before the heavy parts is one of the best transitions on the album. The breakdown on this song is also very impressive, because it marks the first time BTBAM ever used a bit of industrial metal on a song. And it sounds amazing. Next is “Desert of Song”, which is just another song used to break up the pacing before the album’s finale is up. Said finale, is also known as “Swim to the Moon”. It’s the band’s longest song to date, a not a single second is boring or misused. The song has a brilliant dynamic and perfect pacing. The drum solo is just whipped cream on top. With this epic track, TGMD is brought to an exciting close.
The Parallax EP: Hypersleep Dialogues was/is for a very long time, my favorite BTBAM release. It’s only an extended play, but the three tracks seemed to represent the culmination of every single thing I love about the band. The heavy parts, the beautiful parts, the instrumentation, the clean singing, the weird proggy parts. Everything. When I went back to this EP to try to dissect it and give it a number score out of ten, I simply had to give it a perfect score because there was nothing that I could find wrong about it. Because of this, I’ll skip the EP summary (and leave the one person who’s read this much of my review most likely out of pure boredom) and move on. If you have never listened to this EP, please do so, just don’t be surprised if the band doesn’t play it live :(
The Parallax II:Future Sequences. The follow up to an amazing EP. It starts off beautifully, with some impressive guitar work. By now, BTBAM can easily create an album where each of the tracks flow into each other, but can also stand alone. I think one of the things that helped me fall in love with this album is how addicting the guitar riffs are. They’re so catchy and they get stuck in your head very easily. Once you get to the chorus in “Lay Your Ghosts to Rest” the riffs get even catchier. That guitar actually brings me joy when I listen to it, and the bass supporting it too. The bass on this album is by far my favorite of all of BTBAM’s discography. It’s so definitive and well done. “Lay Your Ghosts to Rest” is definitely one of my favorite tracks on the album. Even with the circus sounds, but the end is completely unlike anything the band has ever done before, and what’s that, more great bass parts! The Xylofone in “Extremophile Elite” is awesome, and they play that live too by the way. “Melting City” might not start as good as some other tracks, but it just gets better and better. The interlude truly brings you to another world. It could be used as a beautiful theme for discovery in a movie. The second interlude is mostly bass, and it’s just as amazing. Coincidentally this song also has the heaviest breakdown. No wonder it’s my favorite! All in all this album has such a powerful presence, and the shorter tracks are all atmospheric and good at keeping the pacing. “Silent Flight Parliament” is essentially the album’s last epic, clocking in at over fifteen minutes and the longest track on the album. It flows right into the finale, which as always, ends the album on a great note.
Coma Ecliptic is BTBAM’s most recent effort. The band itself, and ¾ of the members of Cryptodira believe the album to be the best of their efforts.The beginning of the album makes me think of Dream Theater a lot. BTBAM’s has never been shy about their passion for DT but on Coma Ecliptic it definitely shows for better or for worse. (I would think better, but hey it’s subjective in the end.) Even Tommy’s singing on this album sounds completely different. I still like his vocals, but not as much as the cleans on the Parallax series. The piano is tighter than ever though, so daps to my boy Tommy on that. Coma Ecliptic is definitely the weirdest release BTBAM has ever put out. In the sense of experimentation and progression, BTBAM has truly reached a whole new level. That being said, being different and weird doesn’t always mean good, otherwise my band would be touring already, “Famine Wolf” gives me the impression BTBAM wants to try to be Haken pretty bad, which is kind of awesome. They can easily pull it off, like they always have when they took other styles of music, except this time I’m not too certain that they’re truly making it their own. In the end, Coma Ecliptic was definitely an interesting release if not a thrilling one. As always, I’m intruiged to see what the boys will do next.
-Live Overview-
Between the Buried & Me live is a show you don’t want to miss. This band takes music to the next level and their live presentations are no different. With a culmination of raw talent and unbelievable memory, the members of BTBAM play hour long sets at the least for most of their shows. This might sound long, but if you are a fan of the album they are playing it is the very best thing in the world. I haven’t seen too many album playthroughs, but BTBAM does it masterfully. How they can remember their technical parts is impressive enough, how they can play an album all of the way through is an absolutely incredible feat. I’m not sure how many other bands can compete with their god-like stamina.
The first time I was supposed to see Between The Buried & Me, they were set to play at the Crazy Donkey with Job For A Cowboy and The Ocean. I didn’t know The Ocean back in 2011, but I was a fan of JFAC. I came down with a 102 fever and cried because my mom wouldn’t let me go. Yep. BTBAM made me cry. The tickets were given to my friend Quinn Kennedy. Then later that year, BTBAM announced they were coming back to play their new EP Parallax:Hypersleep Dialogues. They came through to Best Buy Theater with Animals As Leaders and TesseracT. It was my first time seeing all three bands and I was very excited. BTBAM played through the EP in it’s entirety, melting faces. They played a special version of Specular Reflection where they extended the interlude. During the interlude the members of AAL and TesseracT came on stage and did a Harlem Shake-like dance. Members were jumping rope, dancing in their underwear and even doing the worm. It was the last day of touring for the trio of bands, so they went all out in a hilariously original display. There was a time where Blake Richardson got off of his drum kit and did 100 push ups while Tommy counted, then returned to his drums and fired off a drum solo.
The second or third time I saw them, they were touring The Parallax II and playing through it in it’s entirety. I doubt I’ll ever enjoy a BTBAM set more than that one. To see each song played in order is just plain perfect. Interestingly enough, the pit was also the wildest. Sweaty prog nerds moshed, and naturally, I had to join them. The people who think that album isn’t heavy enough, should have attended that show. After playing through the album entirely, they still played some hits and a mash up of “Mordecai” and a few other tracks. NYC tends to be the band’s last stop, and they always go hard.
One of the downsides of seeing this band live is the same dilemna plagueing my friends in Cryptodira. Their songs are just too damn long. Not that the fans care, but it ends up limiting the set. BTBAM tends to avoid playing old songs because they claim it gets old fast, but my suggestion would be to play different old songs, instead of White Walls and Selkies a million times. In the end, it is what it is. BTBAM knows how to compose, create, and perform. There are plenty arguements about which album is the best, but in the end I think most people can agree that the band has had a huge influential impact on many bands throughout the country. If you haven’t seen this important band live yet, please do so. Thank you so much for reading, and feel free to say which releases were your favorite in my ask box. :)
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