In 2005, Between the Buried and Me have been a blip on the radar for underground metalheads, too unpredictable for informal metalcore followers and too core for prog heads. Tormented by eight lineup modifications in simply two years and points with their report label, BTBAM may have simply folded, however as soon as frontman Tommy Rogers and guitarist Paul Waggoner met guitarist Dustie Waring, bassist Dan Briggs and drummer Blake Richardson, Between the Buried and Me attained a chemistry that might propel them ahead as one of many twenty first century’s most vital acts.
The brand new BTBAM lineup confirmed immense potential on 2005’s Alaska, reaching new compositional heights with cuts like “Selkies: The Countless Obsession” and “All Our bodies.” Although distinctly extra polished, Alaska wasn’t a lot of a stylistic leap from 2003’s The Silent Circus. Nonetheless, by 2007, rumors started to unfold a couple of ridiculous “rock opera” experiment from the newly-minted five-piece band, threatening to catastrophically problem every part followers knew about BTBAM.
As an alternative of releasing singles to advertise the upcoming report, Between the Buried and Me issued brief color-branded teasers that includes clips from traditional motion pictures. A complete of eight movies would seem (one per track), every disappearing fully inside 24 hours. On Sept. 18, 2007, nonetheless, followers lastly obtained to plunge down the Colours wormhole as Tommy Rogers’ piano lured them right into a lush eruption of sonic jubilance.
About seven minutes into the album, Colours‘ first “What the f—ok?” moments started showing in the direction of the tip of “(B) The Decade of Statues” earlier than plunging into full-on Indiana Jones territory on “Casual Gluttony.” Colours was going to be a visit… and a blinding one, at that.
“We have been writing a musically conceptual, no guidelines, nothing-left-on-the-table report,” Dan Briggs recollects with Steel Injection. “We weren’t solely going to put in writing a report, we have been going to stay in it; eat, sleep and breathe it. We have been going to push ourselves and nobody was going to listen to from us till we’d introduced the album full circle and delivered it as an entire piece.”
How silly is simply too silly? The place does that line exist and the way does a band repeatedly dance millimeters earlier than it, taunting the implications of crossing whereas really not giving a rattling? Musicians like Frank Zappa, System of a Down, Primus and BTBAM’s greatest Colours affect, Pink Floyd, had attained legendary standing by tossing out the concern of not being taken significantly. Creating their very own Darkish Aspect of the Moon was considerably of a shared purpose, whereas the younger BTBAM lineup traded their particular person influences, from Emperor to Oingo Boingo, throughout apply.
Having prepped listeners with some weirdness through the introductory songs to Colours, “Solar of Nothing” is the place some other band would have fallen off the rails; three minutes into the track, it all of the sudden turns into the one thing that appears like a soundtrack for a bootleg Russian Disneyland journey, transitioning right into a crushing breakdown, after which into a beautiful neoclassical guitar orgy… and it labored!
However even “Solar of Nothing” is nothing in comparison with “Ants of the Sky.” The 13-minute monitor weaves out and in of demented carnival steel, psychedelic solos, clean jazz guitar, area rock and a goddamn nation hoedown… to not point out essentially the most tear-jerkingly lovely solo of Paul Waggoner’s profession:
Between the Buried and Me, “Ants of the Sky” (Stay)
Persevering with Colours as a single 63-minute piece, “Ants” seamlessly blends into “Prequel to the Sequel” with that enormous Star Fox riff; a transition smoother than a Morgan Freeman film voiceover. Extra faux-Russian experimentation follows earlier than a vicious vocal tradeoff between Tommy Rogers and Worry Earlier than’s Adam Fisher drives “Prequel” into hyperdrive. The phrase “consolation” has by no means felt so uncomfortable.
Then there’s Briggs’ magnum opus bass piece, “Viridian”: just like the work of Pink Floyd, this instrumental solo wants no phrases to convey boundless emotional depth. The strains are masterfully positioned, and if the guitar solo to “Comfortably Numb” was all of the sudden personified, it might definitely tip its hat to Briggs.
Lastly, in what would develop into BTBAM custom via future idea albums, the closing monitor to Colours was reserved for essentially the most intense, progressive and downright epic piece. Extensively regarded by followers as BTBAM’s biggest track, “White Partitions” is the supernova of Colours’ spectacular lifespan. Like a clairvoyant, Tommy Rogers exclaims, “We shall be remembered for this,” for greater than 30 seconds earlier than the track makes its transfer towards the towering “White partitions!” breakdown.
Between the Buried and Me, “White Partitions”
So far as artistic development, Between the Buried and Me’s journey from Alaska into Colours is akin Mastodon’s from Remission to Leviathan or Dream Theater’s from When Dream and Day Unite to Pictures and Phrases. Colours is the second when Between the Buried and Me found who they have been as a band, and items of that transformation could be readily present in each BTBAM album previous their 2007 masterwork.
By way of numerous rising pains, Between the Buried and Me carved themselves a portrait into the corridor of prog gods with Colours, an album metalheads proceed to carry up as probably the most vital heavy works of the century.
