Long write-up incoming for #19, an album that's definitely not for everyone..
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19. Between the Buried and Me – Colors (2007) 
Well, where do I start with this one? Probably not at the first three tracks, because those three would turn off anybody who is not fond of growls whatsoever, especially those who have no idea what to expect here.
Foam Born: (a) the Backtrack starts off innocently enough, with light piano and clean singing, but soon erupt into a wall of noise and growls. The two tracks that follow are probably even more relentless.
(b) the Decade of Statues is a constant pounding of heavy riffs, only letting go a little at the end of the song.
Informal Gluttony opens with tribal drums, but soon turns into BTBAM’s trademark progressive death metal sound as well. The same formula applies to this track too; at the end it gets a little calmer, but only ever so slightly.
Now that I got the first three tracks out of the way, I can talk about where the album really takes off. The album actually reaches its high points at the fourth track, and from there on it is smooth sailing until the end. Earlier in this top 50, I spoke about Converge’s ‘Jane Doe’ probably being the heaviest album in this list. I won’t correct myself on that, but compared to this record, I think ‘Jane Doe’ is a lot easier to listen to. Not that this is so much heavier, because I don’t think it is, but ‘Colors’ can be very tiring on your ears. Perhaps this is due to me not being used to listening to this type of music a lot, but the constant heaviness, growls and rhythmic and tempo changes really can become too much. That’s probably why I don’t really enjoy the first three tracks all that much, because there’s barely any dynamic subtleties, barring the beginning and ends of the tracks. That said, the remaining tracks are all nothing short of excellent, and the first three aren’t all that bad, otherwise this album wouldn’t be here. All is relative, but still.
It’s probably not surprising that the four longest tracks on this album are my favourite. It seems to me that the band actually though to themselves that because the track is longer, they could experiment within the track more.
Sun of Nothing is the first of three tracks clocking in at over 10 minutes, and almost right from the start (alright, about 2 minutes then) it becomes clear that the band takes more attention to dynamics and melody in this track. Lots of interesting melodies can be found, as well as a very long passage of clean singing at the end.
Ants of the Sky continues this trend, mixing even more melody than the previous track, and like
Sun of Nothing contains a lengthy clean passage. A highlight on the album for me is the moment everything goes quiet around 11:20 and the band introduces a hoedown country section, having that explode into some of the album’s finest instrumental passages. Amazing stuff right there.
The track
Prequel to the Sequel that follows is probably my favourite. That track manages to perfectly blend everything that makes BTBAM sound the way they do into one cohesive track.
Viridian follows, the album’s only instrumental track and the last really peaceful moment before the album heads into the insane album closer
White Walls. This last track starts off with one of the most instantly recognisable riffs on the album, it soon heads into a flurry of rhythms and lots of growls. Like the other tracks over 10-minutes though,
White Walls is very much melodic in the sense that all of the instrumentalists provide a very nice backdrop for the growled vocals. Going through a lengthy quiet passage and multiple trademark BTBAM-sections, the vocalist shouts the words ‘White wall!’ four times and the song ends with a long melodic instrumental passage, including some great guitar solos, ending the album on a very high note.
What makes this album interesting is the ridiculous technicality of all instrumentalists. Furthermore, the melodies, whenever they are there are usually outstanding, and the band doesn’t shy away from using very wacky influences at places you don’t expect them (the hoedown section in
Ants of the Sky is but one of many such instances). Overall, once you get past the brutality of the first three tracks, there’s a lot of beautiful stuff on this album, even though the growled lyrics are for the most part incomprehensible. What doesn’t really help the album is that every track flows directly into the other. This way, the only resting points are the places the music takes a softer turn and there are relatively few of them. It certain is an enjoyable ride, although it may be a little tiring on the ears at some points.
Favourite song: Prequel to the Sequel
Other songs worth checking out: Ants of the Sky, Sun of Nothing, White Walls
Other stuff by this band: It’s kind of weird, but I’m not that much of a fan of this band to actively
like all their other albums. None of it is really bad, but on this one they just did something magical. I think my second favourite by them would be the one they released in 2015, ‘Coma Ecliptic’. Their first two are too much noise for me, but ‘Alaska’ contains some nice songs.
Topic: Elite's top 50 albums v. - 3 Years Older: #1: love is the dance of eternity (Read 47189 times)