BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME: Released on April 12th, 2011, via Metal Blade Records, The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues is the seventh studio album released by BTBAM and first on the legendary Metal Blade Records. This new album from BTBAM may contain just three songs, only each song is a Progressive Metal epic to behold. The total playing time for all three songs is just around thirty minutes. This is thirty minutes of listening to a Metal band that takes song structure, lyrics and musicianship very, very, seriously.
While listening to the tempered down guitar and vocals on Lunar Wilderness, along with it’s rhythmic deceleration, I admittedly hear a progressiveness from the Classic Rock era of YES and very early RUSH. It’s the resonance of that classic tone that spills out from the vocals of Tommy Rogers, with Dustie Waring and Paul Waggoner giving that feel of a long ago Progressive Rock era that they have brought to relevance in this song. Lunar Wilderness can certainly be pointed out as having it’s Extreme vocal and Metal moments, qualities that BTBAM manifest brilliantly.
Specular Reflection clocks in at 11:21 and is progressively enriched with all things great about BTBAM. The piano key intro accompanied with orchestration and chorus, only leads me into the mind blowing, Extreme Metal journey that this ultra-talented band is so vastly known for creating. BTBAM fans won’t be disappointed while new fans shall be mesmerized and pulled into the Progressive and Extreme circle of sound that they’ll hear from Specular Reflection.
Augment Of Rebirth from the onset is a furious Metal assault onto the senses. Easily the heaviest song of the three. With unyielding Extreme vocals, the raging tempo subsides with soothing vocals for a few intervals, beginning at the three quarter mark. Is Augment Of Rebirth a dream? A Nightmare? A daydream? Lyrically, this song casts a melancholy image of battling oneself within the framework of one’s own mind. Be it sub-conscious or conscious, BTBAM sets the mood musically around the lyrics of Tommy Rogers which culminates in a surreal and yet still, Extreme way.
When I listen to an uncommon Progressive Metal band such as BTBAM, I come to the realization that barriers are meant to be torn down within the framework of any Rock genre. Any BTBAM album needs to be absorbed for hours in order to hear almost everything that is happening within the layers of it’s music. This is what thrills me about remarkable Progressive Metal, when I have to dive into an album such as The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues and actually discover sounds and/or parts of songs that I’ve missed after the first ten listens.
Being one who grew up with the profoundness of Pink Floyd and their Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall masterpieces of Progressive Rock art, I tend to chuckle to myself as I think of BTBAM as a Metal metamorphosis of this iconic band. Seriously, BTBAM are as unique as The Periodic Table Of The Elements itself. Just like this same Periodic Table, BTBAM encompasses a level of discipline and conclusiveness that is Metal meritorious. BTBAM takes this discipline and arranges their songs with an uncanny and explicit manner, to take you on their Progressive Metal exploration. BTBAM may very well be unparalleled, within this exceptional genre known as Progressive Metal.
BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME:
Dan Briggs – bass
Blake Richardson – drums & percussion
Tommy Rogers – vocals, keyboards & lyrics
Paul Waggoner – guitar
Dustie Waring – guitar
Track Listing For The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues:
Specular Reflection
Augment Of Rebirth
Lunar Wilderness
* For more info on BTBAM, click on the links below:
Between The Buried And Me – facebook
Between The Buried And Me – myspace music
LONG LIVE BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME.
Stone.
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