bonnek On Colours, BtBam seem to have fully grown into their sound, a mix of modern prog, heavy riff frenzy and metal-core outbursts. In other words, a sort of metalized version of Mars Volta with both hardcore vocals and delicate melodious vocals.

When they chose to "prog", they do it like the best of the pack. Tommy Rogers has a great spontaneous lyricism in his melodic voice and he is very inventive at finding fresh and dynamic vocal lines to accompany the inspired and adventurous music. When it comes to the aggressive parts I found myself in a place that will be familiar to many other listeners, I initially just frowned in discomfort at the metal-core parts. Too much one-dimensional aggression for me.

But the imaginative freedom and energetic boost from this band is simply too high to give up on them too easily. I’m glad I persisted as this is truly a remarkable album. It’s extremely capricious but I don’t find it a mish-mash at all. Maybe it is if you expect a song to have a head and tail and all the other parts in a logical order in between, but these disturbed youngsters throw in whatever bit that feels like a logical continuation of the previous bit and to my ears everything seems to flow naturally. Just don’t expected too much repeated choruses or recognizable tunes to whistle along to.

Andyman1125 Between mastery and perfection.

Colors is the 5th release from progressive metalcore master Between the Buried and Me. Fusing classic progressive metal elements with the thrash and furious elements of death metal, they have produced a rather unique sound in a genre that doesn't really have any creativity, for the most part. With colors we can see a great variety of sounds, from melodic piano interludes to crushing and quick metalcore thrash sessions. The album displays a near perfect mix of all these elements, making this album a must have for any seasoned or avid metalcore fan.

The album kicks off with the Foam Born duology, first with Part A "The Backtrack," a mellow piano and vocal piece. The part slowly builds into a slightly more rocking piece, instituting a slight keyboard/guitar solo arpeggio sweep and some more major sounding backtracks before modulating into the much heavier and metal music the band is known for. The song seamlessly transitions into Part B "The Decade of Statues," a much faster and heavier hitting song. Sometimes the song seems to have way too much going on at once, with crazy vocals, crazy guitars, crazy bass, crazy drums, and pretty much just an overall craziness, and it can be somewhat overwhelming. But, the song does have an amazing attribute going for it: at the end of the song, there is a short period of jazzy synchronization that is purely infectious. Each member puts forth a key effort, making those short seconds a blast to listen to.

Informal Gluttony opens with a somewhat Arabian or ethnic sounding riff, before breaking into a more traditional BtBaM riff and metalcore thrashery. The album has some interesting dynamics, switching often between crazy metalcore riffs and more mellow breakdowns. Sadly, this often seems to act as a detriment to the album, with some awkward transitions happening between feels. There are some good ideas in the song, but occasionally they seem forced into the song unnaturally.

Sun of Nothing is the first 10+ minute epic on the album, and it certainly delivers. Again it has some intense metalcore riffing with some heavy guitars and vocals. The song has some of the more "listenable" material, with more audible guitar riffs rather than low register, mad fast guitar chugging. The instrumental section are great, with some great synchronized solos and some interesting guitar melodies and harmonies. A much more melodic section can be found in the song, making this one of the tastier and more dynamic songs on the album. It has strong jazz and progressive rock roots, showing the band's many influences. Overall, this song is one of the better tracks on the album, with great dynamics and some really great ideas.

Ants in the Sky is the seamless transition from Sun of Nothing, and the second longest song on the album, clocking in at over 13 minutes. The song is similar to the last track, with some interesting soloing and more melodic dynamics. The song has another jazzy synchronized instrumental section, which flows into a great mellow section, which flows back into a more metal section, which flows into yet another jazzy and infectious synchronized instrumental section. Whew! The song, as you can see, has its healthy dose of creativity and inventiveness. The song as a whole contains so many genius ideas that sometimes its hard to wrap your head around it, but overall the song just oozes creativity and fun.

Prequel to the Sequel is a surprising breath of fresh air-- with a song in a major scale! The song is, surprisingly, happy. The extremely happy music contrasts the not-so happy vocals actually quite nicely, making an oddly pleasant track. The song does modulate to a much more heavy and metal feel though, but doesn't hesitate to keep up the intensity, despite dropping the great happy/evil contrast. The song has plenty of dynamics, however, with a peculiar parlor-like section near the end, which flows into a more thrash-metal like section, which flows into a pseudo-black metal section. Overall, the song is good, but has even more ideas shoved into it than the last track, making very peculiar to listen to.

Viridian is a short instrumental track, consisting of a much slower and more ambient feel. Mellow guitars slowly pick their way through the track and some jazzy guitar soloing fronting that. Some really ambient keys in the back make the song especially ambient and trippy. Overall, the song acts most as a transition to the last and most epic track on the album, and can for the most part be overlooked as an individual track.

White Walls is the definitive epic of the album, clocking at over 14 minutes and containing a generous amount of epic music. The whole song provides an amazing ride. Opening intense, like always, the song has a certain original quality that most of the other songs don't seem to have. Instead of just intense riffing all the way through, the song has a steady build up to the more fierce stuff, and the fierce stuff has a certain melodic and dissonant quality to it that is unique to the track. The band has no trouble switching dynamics, going into a much mellow and melodic section midway into the song, adding a fantastic charm to the song. This dynamic makes for an extremely enjoyable progressive section, with some fantastic instrumentation and progression in their music. Overall, the song outputs one of the strongest and most creative efforts for the album, making it an especially amazing closer to the album.

ALBUM OVERALL: This album is easily one of Between the Buried and Me's best. The whole album is a blast to listen to, containing some of the best dynamics I've heard in a metalcore album. Of course, as in any album of the genre, some of the music can be a little unnecessarily intense and fierce. However, many of the songs can easily switch up this norm with jazzy interludes and great progressive synchronizations, melodic breakdowns and mellow ambient sections, and so much more. The band has no trouble making a great and dynamic album which just misses the masterpiece tag. 4+ stars.

arcane-beautiful When I first got this album, I wasn’t really what to make of them, but I looked at the artwork and the times of the songs, and I thought…this is for me.

And it was “right up my street” (as Cheryl Ashley Cole Tweedy whatever would say). They had melody and harmony perfect, enough technical ability to entertain most children, and some weird parts to make you laugh or interested.

These guys are very unique, and its such a shame that there is so many carbon copies of this band out today, giving half the effort and half the ability and talent.

Mixing death core with progressive metal and other eclectic moments, these guys made a real masterpiece of work, even the way the songs flow are amazing.

There is also an accompanying live DVD that accompanies the album, where the album is played in its entirety, and it really is interesting to see music of this dexterity played with such precision. These guys have a lot more in their future…

1. Foam Born: (A) The Backtrack - A beautiful piano intro with some lovely instrumental work. One of the best intros I have ever heard. 10/10

2. Foam Born (B) Decade Of Statues - Amazing instrumental work and some crazy riffing. 9/10

3. Informal Gluttony - Every band has an Arabic influenced song. And this is theirs. I love the layered vocals in the chorus. One of the albums more contemporary moments. 10/10

4. Sun Of Nothing - The Spaceman song. Yes, the Spaceman section is the real highlight, and really is beautifully written. The rest is also very interesting, especially all the links into all the different sections. 10/10

5. Ants Of The Sky - Some odd lyrics, but when ever the melodic sections hit, it really does evolve into a monster of a piece. 10/10

6. Prequel To The Sequel - The intro is just spectacular and beautifully written. The song is quite fast paced and takes you into many dimensions. 10/10

7. Viridian - Beautiful bass based instrumental. Some great atmospheric moments. 10/10

8. White Walls - This does support itself as a great outro, but it is a bit too long (a bit like Swim To The Moon). Some amazing instrumental parts. 9/10

CONLCUSION: Close to perfect really. A modern masterpiece and one of the most interesting albums released in the past 10 years.

Conor Fynes 'Colors' - Between The Buried And Me (8/10)

For a very, very long time, I hated Between the Buried and Me. I viewed them as Metalcore 'straight- edge' garbage that played music for 14 year old emo-kids to thrash to. Even when I saw them live (opening for Dream Theater and Opeth for the ProgNation tour) I couldn't stand them, and spent the majority of their set conversing with friends. However, upon wider listening to their repetoire, I started to notice why they have such a prog following to them. Despite alot of leanings towards metalcore- esque music, their music started to dawn on me as having alot of credibility, and carefully composed technicality to it. Although I (for the most part) cannot stand their previous works, Between the Buried and Me's 2007 effort 'Colors' emphasizes their Prog Rock side just enough to make me enjoy it.

Although there are still (after 20+ listens from start to finish) parts of the album that still sound too noisy and thrashy, there is alot of intelligence to keep the music flowing. There are even a suprising amount of moments on the album where I got chills from listening to it. From the piano-driven first track, to the post-rock section of 'Ants In The Sky' and even the famed bluegrass section, this has the ability to raise your eyebrow in question, touch your heart, and give you a dose of 'hardcore' metal that at times can be decently enjoyable if taken as it is.

There was a point (when I first started to truly enjoy this album) I would give this a 5-star rating, simply because of how technically brilliant it is. But despite this being one of the most technically accomplished albums I've ever listened to (I mean that too!) there are just those few parts that are a little too reminiscent of their earlier work that robs them of the perfect rating. Also, some of their lyrics I found annoying. Although theres some sense of poeticism in their words, writting an entire song, in essence about how awesome they are as a band (White Walls) can get tiresome. Especially in the prog metal genre, that sort of pretenious lyricism can really wear thin.

However, flaws aside, I found myself amazed by the sheer technical talent and cohesion of this band. It's definately not an album for everyone (I certainly can't see too many Marillion fans loving this album - although ironically, I love that band) but if you can withstand an hour of ear-shattering jaw dropping madness, then by all means, this album is recommended!

topofsm This album deserves to be heard by every fan of progressive metal at least once. Even if some may not enjoy it, they deserve to hear this excellent example of creativity and innovation in metal.

Colors is an album that is a little over an hour long that deserves to be listened to in its entirety. There are 8 separate songs, each contributing a huge part to the whole. In each song the listener will be assaulted with agressive, loud metal, with sort of a mix between death metal and metalcore (not deathcore). At any given point in the album, the band will suddenly take the extreme noise in a completely different direction, from jazz to middle eastern to latin. In any event, whoever is familiar with this album has to admit that Between The Buried and Me has a wonderful ability to write beautiful melodies, and are not just one of many standard metal bands who only make noisy songs and only occasionally slow it down for a ballad.

At first when writing a review for this album, I gave a little overview of a few of the songs. Looking back on the review, I wasn't familiar enough with the album to talk clearly about them. They are still brilliant, but all for different reasons. All of them have at least a bit of melody within them, usually in the form of some jazz influence, while being surrounded by metalcore of the more intense variety. For example, "Sun of Nothing" may contain the most blatantly agressive parts, exploding in a rapid blast of insanity. Suddenly it goes into baby noises and a jazz tinged funky backbeat. There are often a lot of ambient parts. Possibly the simplest song on the album, "Informal Gluttony" opens with epic phrygian mode Egyptian melodies. After an assault of metal, it bursts into a melodic, melancholic section as Tommy Rogers sings "feed me fear". "Ants of The Sky" and "White Walls", the longer tracks of the album, are possibly the best (hard to designate on a record so flawless), the former being their most eclectic song to date and never letting up on energy, the latter filled with a masterful balance of heaviness and melody, with the most emotional phrases and the greatest album ending imaginable. All the songs have distinct sections in it, while all fitting into the whole. The great part about it is with all the songs blending into each other, it just keeps going, and going, and going, and going, and never lets up till the epic aforementioned climax.

Overall, this album is not only a testimony that metal can be eclectic or creative, but also brutal and technical while being emotional at the same time. It contains elements of music that often appear together, but never before all at once. This album is essential for any metal fan, and I think anybody interested in listening to music for the joy of it should listen to it to hear the testimony of a band that makes music for the sheer joy of it and the ability to create.