Between The Buried And Me are seasoned vets to the progressive metalcore, electronic, prog (whatever other genre they bend) scene and continue to drop album after album. Their career started back in 2000 from the ashes of one of the greatest metalcore bands of all time (in my humble opinion), Prayer For Cleansing. As the band has progressed over the years, one thing remains the same: they are phenomenal musicians. Almost to the point that it makes me either want to practice my guitar more or just throw it away.
The Blue Nowhere is the band’s 11th studio album, excluding a cover album and an EP. This 10-track full-length is the first release with their new label home Inside Out Music. Despite the grandiose and epic sound of this album, it’s also their first album playing as a four-piece band. However, there’s no way you could ever tell due to how big it sounds.
BTBAM manages to mesh electronic overtones while almost teetering into the industrial genre territory at times, all while keeping the progressive metal –- almost nu-metal -- vibes they’ve been known for these past few years. The mixed time signatures and constant shifts from almost electronic circus music (as in the middle of "God Terror") to insanely heavy riffs (the beginning of "Absent Thereafter") to an acoustic ballad ("Pause") will keep the listener guessing on what’s coming next. They are truly a musician’s band.
This latest album from BTBAM continues to deliver what fans know and love from the band. Overall, while not shying from the metalcore heaviness, The Blue Nowhere tends for feel like the band dabbles more into the progressive side with more cleaner vocals and less chaos. With all that being said, there is nothing really groundbreaking here either. It delivers exactly what you expect: chaoticg extremely heavy riffs coupled with outlandish clean riffs, electronic sounds and keys; guttural screams followed by serenading vocals. The standout tracks for me are "Door #3," "Absent Thereafter," and "Psychomanteum." These tracks remind me of years gone by, when they first rolled onto the scene and completely demolished the standards of what metalcore was. Glad to see they still have it in them.
