Continuing a motif of cosmic evolution/reincarnation, Future Sequence, the latest release by Between the Buried and Me, picks up where Hypersleep Dialogues left off. Releases Tuesday Oct. 9 on Metal Blade Records
Review by David Feltman
In a culture of downloaded singles, the progressive sub-genre is one of the rare areas of pop music that takes a holistic view of album crafting. Each song is generally approached as a single movement of a larger work rather than a member of a mere collection. Listening to a random track from a progressive album can, as a result, feel incoherent and jarring. That’s why something felt off when The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues was released last year. The three-track, 30-minute “EP” (when Weezer releases 30 minutes of music they call it an LP, but whatever) was as outrageously and brutally experimental as any of their other releases, but it still felt naked, like a prologue to a non-existent novel. Happily, Between the Buried and Me finally delivered that missing book.
Continuing a motif of cosmic evolution/reincarnation, Future Sequence picks up where Hypersleep Dialogues left off. You can just imagine Dr. Bowman from “2001: A Space Odyssey” beginning his transformation into the star child as the album warms up. The band is as unrestrained in its musical stream-of-conscious as ever, with no random riff too obscure to drop in. Amidst all of the screamy, chug-a-chugs of “Lay Your Ghost to Rest,” a light bit of carnival music breaks in from nowhere and sticks around for two whole minutes, until what once felt upsetting becomes organic again. Between the Buried and Me consistently takes the most odd and obscure sonic bits and make them inexorably their own. If you don’t believe me, just check out the xylophone solo or the sitar riff on “Extremophile Elite.”
It is no easy achievement for a band to be so recklessly creative and yet remain so cohesively themselves. Between the Buried and Me may be far from what anyone could call “radio friendly,” but they are easily one of the best metal bands roaming the earth.
