#25: Between The Buried And Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence2012 - Progressive Death Metal - North Carolina, USA And here it is, the album I was talking about back in The Great Misdirect writeup. The Parallax II is what got me into BTBAM thanks to its incredible songwriting ability to take you on a hell of a journey with each piece, while also sounding very cohesive and flowing. And when you also have a huge storyline like that, and also an amazingly stunning performance DVD, you just fall in love with everything, and that’s what happened with me.
This album unites the technical death metal elements of Colors with the progressive soundscapes of Great Misdirect. It really feels that those two albums had a child, and that child is Future Sequence. There's really a perfect marriage between untouchable, scary technical chaos and purest forms of melody in this record. Each second of it doesn’t sound wasted, it’s all meticulously studied, and it takes a lot of listens to digest. But when it clicks, oh man, it never leaves you. I’ve known this record for a couple of months now, and I can’t seem to stop listening to it; maybe it’s a spontaneous thing that my mind does, challenging itself with trying to fully comprehend everything in the disc, maybe it’s just me that wants to jam on some BTBAM, I don’t know. The fact is that this album is really addicting, and I listen to it at least up until half, once every two days, or even everyday. Hell yeah.
So, this is actually a concept album about two characters, which are worlds away from each other, but have a deep spiritual connection: Prospect 1 and Prospect 2. The story of these two actually reaches far back into the band’s discography, specifically in three songs: Prequel To The Sequel, from Colors, which describe somewhat of an apocalypse (maybe it’s a prophecy) that happens upon Prospect 2‘s planet, Lost Perfection, from The Silent Circus, in which the apocalypse actually takes place, also because of Prospect 2 himself, and in Swim To The Moon, where we first hear about Prospect 1, and his will to die drowned in the sea. Now, in the first installment of The Parallax series (Hypersleep Dialogues), we find out that these two are connected spiritually, and have the purpose to be some kind of Gods, and decide whether the humans can continue to live or not. Reasons, unknown. At least until now.
The album starts with
Goodbye To Everything, a spacey and moving acoustic introduction, that actually takes place at the end of the story. So, we already know that everything ends badly for humans and our two Prospects. After this awesome introduction, the album kicks in at full progginess with
Astral Body. This is one of my favorite intros in any song, and I really love the way the vocals kick in. Also, that opening lick is groovy as fuck. This song continuously shifts from sound to sound, beginning with melodic death metal, then through Arabic, death metal once again, to end up with an epic melodic outro, which transistions directly into my favorite track,
Lay Your Ghosts To Rest. This is the perfect fusion between melody and sonic destruction, like I’ve said in general about the albums. Yes, because the verses are fucking brutal, especially the “Precaution documents” one, whilst the chorus is gorgeous, melodic and sends shivers down my spine. Also, I’m a big fan of “THE END STARTS NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW”. A powerful breakdown. Lyrically these two songs are pretty much about the same thing, Prospect 2 is feeling guilty about what happened to his planet, so he cuts away pieces of his body (this is presumably a metaphor about memories and stuff), only to leave new material, so that he can move on. He moves on in the sense that he arrives to Earth to meet Prospect 1, and those are the events narrated in the third track (after a short transitional piece,
Autumn),
Extremophile Elite. This track showcases in its ten minutes of length, the technical abilities of the band. Jesus, it’s really an assault of time signatures and chaos, but it flows so freaking well. I could name fifteen moments in this song worthy of mention, from the incredibly heavy second verse, to the Specular Reflection reprise, to the unexpected orchestral breakdown. Now, that part is really amazing. Fast riffing, blast beats, that eventually transition into an Opeth-styled dissonant 6/8 riff. This does really “Send bliss throughout me”. The album takes a bit of a break with the next two tracks,
Parallax and
The Black Box. The first one is a short 1-minute ambient piece, with spoken words about the two Prospects’ cosmic relationship. The second one starts out as a simple piano ballad that suddenly becomes an arpeggiated epic build-up to the next track. The Black Box is where the driving forces behind the whole operation are revealed. Well, not exactly, but there’s the reveal that there are some actual driving forces behind it all. This track is really epic, but it’s short and serves as somewhat of an intro to the next piece,
Telos. This is the heaviest piece in the entire album, featuring some hard hitting death metal soundscapes, interrupted in the middle by some Steven Wilson-influenced atmospheres. This track is one of the best in the album, the structure is amazing. The build up from the calm melodic part to the second part of the mass destruction, is really well done, and it sends shivers. It really sounds like the world is ending. In Telos there are two storylines: the first one is Prospect 2 wanting to end humanity, but Prospect 1 does not agree, so the two separate from each other. Prospect 2 wants to do that because he found out that the letter he wrote to his wife before leaving for his journey, was never delivered. Infact, we also take a look at the point of view of Prospect 2’s wife, who is really upset that her husband left with no explanation, so she commits suicide. Great storytelling right there. Props to Tommy.
Bloom takes us back to Swim To The Moon, chronologically speaking. We find out that after Prospect 1 passes out in the sea at the end of that song, he is abducted by some kind of sea creatures that experiment on him. Now, this track is fucking hilarious. Not only it has a surf rock section, but it also features the line “Bebop skippity tippity tap those toes” which is sung in growl. Other fun facts are the quirky vocal effects and the accordion. I feel like this album really needed a bit of humour, since that’s always been a part of BTBAM songwriting, but in here it would be absent, if it weren’t for this song.
Melting City is kind of an encounter of the technicality in Extremophile Elite and the melodicness of Lay Your Ghosts To Rest. I feel it’s my least favorite, but it’s a great listen, especially thanks to the great chorus “Faceless In A Sea Of Space” and the “I must let her know” section. Major chills during that one. In this song we find out what actually happened to Prospect 2’s letter, and why it was never delivered. It seems that an individual, named “The Black Mask”, broke into P2’s house and stole the letter before the wife even noticed it. He was meant to destroy it, but he instead kept it, and read it, developing a strong feeling of remorse. Once he went back to give it to her, he actually witnessed the fire in which the wife took her life. Pretty sad point of the story, but not as epic as the conclusive long piece,
Silent Flight Parliament. In this dramatic long tune, we find out that it was all fault of The Night Owls, the same creatures described in Fossil Genera, back in The Great Misdirect. Infact, it’s all just a game to eliminate humans, in order for them to grow. Musically, the first bit features some throwbacks to both Astral Body and Lay Your Ghosts To Rest, and since I always love this kind of stuff, it’s nice to hear it. Towards the end everything gets more melodic with the creepily disturbing “Like it’s their last…and it is” verse. Infact, Prospect 2 is pretty pissed off about everything, and he breaks into P1’s house, and he kills both him and himself, and P1’s wife. He also presumably ends all sorts of life with some kind of weapon that The Night Owls provided him with, but it’s still all speculation. The climax of the album is a joy to the ears, providing a great apocalyptic finale with “Jet propulsion disengage, dancing towards our future, A future of nothing”. Chills, man. I always picture the Prospect 2 laughing histerically whilist Prospect 1 is shitting himself, just a second before everything explodes. And the thing is, the two are meant to look alike, so imagine: you wake up to see a laughing man, ending human life, laughing, and he looks like you. That’s terrifying. So yep, definitely a great climax to a big storyline. Everything actually ends with
Goodbye To Everything Reprise, just a brief guitar solo and the line “Goodbye to Everything” that end the album the way it begins, with some astral ambient sounds and acoustic guitars. Stunning.
Wow, that came out pretty long. Well, yes, there is really a lot to talk about this album. It’s surely a fucking awesome discovery, and I think it will grow further on me, maybe next time it will be higher.
Favorites: EVERYTHING