So Sick It Hurts: Between the Buried and Me - "Colors"

I’m busting onto the scene like a bat out of hell, thanks Meatloaf. Who am I you ask? Well the Wu-Tang Clan rapped about me, Hour of the Wolf wailed about me, Hitchcock scribbled about me, and most of northern Wisconsin fears me; I’m Psycho Killa. Spelled with an “a” instead of “er,” to stay MTV generation compatible. ... So what if I just called myself by my pen name? I’m just trying to burn up some space here because I’ve never written anything besides someone’s order down at Scooby’s. I worked there as fry boy for 3 years and was elevated to cashier before I was offered this gig for a “brand new form of interneting” according to the fellas of Belly Full of Hell. I guess they invented blogs or something and…wait you wanted to know about the album right? OK, OK, here you go.

I was informed of this album by my friend Hallur Hallsson, yes he’s Icelandic, with these words:

“It’s… it rips. You just have to listen to it.”

So I took him up on that one. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every other sonic adventure I’ve heard from these fellas, seemed a no-brainer. As I read into the album a little bit I realized it was receiving a lot of hype. I mean the album has a “trailer” for fuck’s sake. They also match “the brilliance of Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Tool, and Mastodon,” according to Victory Records website. Bah to you, Victory Records! I’m not really a fan of people comparing themselves to Pink Floyd, they always fall well short. Although nothing as ground breaking as Pink Floyd, the atmospheres present at times in Colors is reminiscent at times of the Floyd. I think Rick Wright, wind instrumentalist turned keyboardist, would be pleased with the comparison. Nonetheless this album rips and I think Between the Buried and Me have definitely catalyst themselves to the forefront of the progressive metal genre.

Colors definitely comes at you from many different angles. “Foam Born (A) The Backtrack” starts out lighter with some sultry piano and accompanying singing that gives way to some wondrously, synth-tastic melodies. Shagrath style vocals start the song morphing into “(B) The Decade of Statues,” a definitely heavier track with a chorus that seems to be played upon some foreign mountain top overlooking the sea as a blood moon rises. Yea, I went there bitches. BTBAM (always sounds like “Bat ‘um” in my head) provides yet another stellar song set that is a journey within each and have taken a step further with this album as it’s meant to flow from track to track. “Informal Gluttony” takes on the same foreign feel as the track gets ready to pummel you about a minute into it. As “Informal Gluttony” fades into didgeridoo and percussion goodness the first epic of the album bursts into your ears. “Sun of Nothing” clocks in at ten minutes fifty-eight seconds and provides you with a short Man Man style break. This track like the other epics and the album as a whole rips through you, sheds up the sound waves, and sails between many styles of music. Oh, I also forgot to tell you there is a western saloon style banjo breakdown in so be prepared for anything.

Just remember the Colors journey is meant to be a complete one, at least for your first time around. So time to burst your virginity with this album and bleed for metal!

Here you can check out BTBAM playing "Informal Gluttony" live. Make sure to listen for the horrible off-beat clapping by the crowd in the beginning.

Featured Live Show: Between the Buried and Me, HORSE the band on Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite fake holidays: It's an excuse to eat shitloads of tooth-rotting sweets and dress up as bloodthirsty serial killers, zombies and assassinated presidents. But last week, I forwent my annual costumed partying and gluttonous candy-eating by attending a concert at the Blender Theatre at Gramercy. And with good reason: Between the Buried and Me were playing a headlining show with support from Horse the band, Animosity and Giant.















First up were Giant. The Raleigh, North Carolina quartet recently replaced The End after their guitarist abruptly quit the band. But Giant's squalls of melody, bass grooves, atmospheric guitars and occasional throaty shouts didn't go over well with the Blender crowd -- people began spewing the typically unimaginative insults ("You suuuuuuuuuuuuck!") during most of the quieter instrumental parts. (Clearly no one else was a fan of Isis, Pelican or Cult of Luna.)






















Next were Animosity. I had first heard of them a few weeks ago when I received their new album Animal, which was produced by Converge's Kurt Ballou (the disc caught my attention among my pile of CDs because it had a neon album cover that featured a vomiting bear), and I was really psyched to see them live. When they came onstage, each member wore a mask of a giant photo of their own heads. "We're Animosity, Bobblehead Edition 2008," said singer Leo Miller, whose "bobblehead" bore green sunglasses and an open mouth. They immediately launched into "Toothgrinder" from the new album; they also played "Bomb Over Rome," "A Passionate Journey" and "Plunder Incorporated" from Animal as well as older tunes. Animosity's fast metal guitars, pummeling blastbeats and strangled screams induced non-stop mosh pits and left the crowd wanting more -- when their set ended, the "one more song" chant turned into "one more set."















To prepare for HORSE the band's performance, roadies began putting out fake trees, a giant inflatable turkey and a funeral horse and carriage on the stage. Then the drummer flitted into the spotlight in a short dress and fairy wings; the guitarist came on in a belly-baring genie outfit, the bassist was dressed as a witch and the keyboardist wore a yellow evening gown. When the singer walked out in a mermaid outfit (complete with a red-haired wig and seashells covering his hairy man boobs), it became apparent that Htb were dressed as female Disney characters (that's Tinkerbell, Jasmine, Maleficent, Belle and Ariel for the Disney deprived).






















"We're HORSE the band from another land," said frontman (er, frontwoman) Nathan Winneke in a high-pitched voice, setting off the band's raucous set of frantic tunes laced with lung-burning howls, breakneck guitar runs and manic 8-bit video game-inspired synthesizers worthy of the greatest NES games. Htb played both new and old tracks (from R. Borlax to The Mechanical Hand to their latest, A Natural Death) including crowd-pleaser "New York City" (natch). The little mermaid was wigless and topless ("Let's see that at Disney on Ice, you motherfuckers!") by the time they got to their closing song "Cutsman," which had the audience going apeshit over the "Nintendocore" classic. Even if Htb isn't your cup of tea, you can't say that they don't put on an entertaining show.






















Finally, the headliner: Between the Buried and Me. The last time I saw BTBAM in NYC was October 31, 2004 at the Knitting Factory, when they were touring in support of Alaska and opening for Converge. This time around, the five-piece came onstage dressed in matching overalls and straw hats with no shoes ("I think it was a bad idea to play barefoot," frontman Tommy Rogers later said). From there, they played their new album Colors in its entirety. From the opening piano ballad of "Foam Born (a) The Backtrack" to the 14-minute opus "White Walls," it was immersive, beautiful, heavy, melodic, progressive. When the set ended they left the stage for a mere two minutes only to returns and play "Selkies: The Endless Obsession," everyone's favorite jazzy, synthesizer-laden track from Alaska. Costumes aside, this was one of the best all-around shows I'd been to in a long time, and you should kick yourself for missing it.

[All photos by Jesse Angelo.]