BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME

Raleigh’s math metal pioneers hit their progressive stride.

There was a time when Between The Buried And Me seemed to be conflicted about how far to venture into traditional prog territory. Intrinsically linked to the math metal scene that spawned them back in the late 90s, the North Carolina quintet have always made deeply progressive music, but it wasn’t until Coma Ecliptic in 2015 that they finally seemed to realise the extent of their own potential. The result was that this most ingenious of modern metal bands had found their natural habitat and Coma Ecliptic was its magnificent blossoming.

Newly emboldened, their decision to release eighth album Automata in two distinct chapters made perfect sense for a band with a bigger, more attentive audience: with music this good, why squander half of it to today’s short-attention-span, pick’n’mix culture? That said, waiting for the concluding part of the album has been hugely frustrating. Which, presumably, was all part of the plan. The cunning bastards.

Joyously, while more a straightforward continuation of Coma Ecliptic’s liberated prog metal splurge than a comparably bold leap forward, the first part of Automata contained more than its fair share of surprises, not least the exquisite Millions: a simple but powerful song that the band would never have contemplated attempting in their early days.

Similarly, Automata II veers off on one most unexpected tangent, and one that many Prog readers will find easy to embrace. Voice Of Trespass is a demented exercise in bigband jazz metal, replete with parping brass section and some outrageous, Zappa-like syncopation. BTBAM’s debt to Mike Patton’s alma mater Mr. Bungle has always been apparent, of course, and it’s not hard to trace this curveball back to a love of that band’s John Zorn-produced first album, but this is no lazy tribute or goofy pastiche: instead, it’s ridiculously exciting, heavy as hell and provides the perfect, grotesquely melodramatic set-up for the grand finale, The Grid.

Automata II begins with the frankly overwhelming grandeur and intricacy of The Proverbial Bellow, a song that contains so many ideas, it deserves its own review. The

Grid is much the same, only more so. A masterclass in ebb and flow, it comes imbued with a rich, melancholic core, Tommy Rogers’ understated vocals fading away to allow Paul Waggoner to play one of his finest solos yet, a gorgeously emotive spiral of melodic finesse that provides Automata with a sense of musical, if not conceptual, resolution. And yes, there is an intriguing narrative threaded through this mind-bending concept piece, but the real story here is that BTBAM are neck deep in prog and loving every minute.

IT’S RIDICULOUSLY EXCITING AND HEAVY AS HELL.