Perhaps I was in a weird mood the day I agreed to review this album, but it’s not a decision I regret. Having never heard of Between the Buried and Me, I went into this with an open mind. This album is sci-fi concept follow on from last year’s EP ‘The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues’ from the North Carolina based quintet and at 72 minutes long, it gets a lot of storytelling done.
“Goodbye to Everything” is the sickly sweet opening track, which is full of vocal harmonies and gently strummed guitar, with what could be a xylophone being tinkled in the background. But you shouldn’t let this false sense of softness fool you into thinking you’re not going to be in for a rollercoaster ride.
Now the intricate guitar melodies start to take shape and Tommy Rogers’s vocals on “Astral Body” range from the soft clean vocals of a crooner to death roars and metalcore screams, which he also uses plentifully on “Lay Your Ghosts to Rest” where Blake Richardson’s blasting allows Dustie Waring and Paul Waggoner to trade a couple lighting fast leads before the complete jump to what almost sounds like carousel music emanating from Rogers’ keyboards.
There is a brief interlude in the form of “Autumn” before being plunged into the 10 minute track “Extremophile Elite” where some serious guitar riffing and layering are interspersed with seemingly random changes and keyboard bridges to keep you listening intently to what would amount to scene changes were this cinematography.
Keyboards and softly whispered lyrics for the short “Parallax” take you into softly singing and keyboards for “The Black Box” which eventually crescendo into slow but heavy drum pounding and increasingly heavier sounding guitars ’til it explodes into “Telos” for guttural roars, manic guitar riffs and one pounding blast battery followed by another until it mellows out to a jazzy light drum tapping with avant-garde keyboards. It then builds up again slowly to fill the remaining 5 minutes of the 10 minute song with frantic ferocity.
Now “Bloom” is a very happy sounding track, all bouncy and Mr. Bunglesque in it’s off the wall changes before it becomes “Melting City” which is just as fast changing, but concentrating more on the heavier sounding guitars and super-fast lead runs.Rogers’s roars are interspersed with the clean choruses, which in some cases would suit the lounge music in the bridges more than the heavier parts on the song. The slow meandering leads used while these adagio movements flow somnolently through the song are well played and don’t detract from the ambience they portray.
The longest track, clocking in at over 15 minutes, is “Silent Flight Parliament” which slowly increases in tempo in its first movement, before dropping away to be the vocals almost on their own followed by an abrupt jump to a steady, choppy guitar riff which in turn becomes more convoluted an intricate when combined with the melody riff and ever changing drum patterns. Dan Briggs work is subtle to the point of being the undercurrent you feel more than hear, but there are times on this track where the bass is audible as the clean guitars are being played before their distortion is turned on again.
They conclude the album with “Goodbye to Everything Reprise”, to softly let you return to reality and allow your heart rate to drop again.
This may have been a rather epic journey to embark on and having listened to this at 3 times a day for the past 2 weeks, I’m glad to say that each listen reveals more subtlety and further layers to explore. Thoroughly enjoyable and well worth it.
(8/10 Marco Gaminara)
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