‘Dancing towards our future. A future of nothing. A future towards nothing.’
Words by Kiera Falke. Photography by Kieran White, please contact before any use.
Between the Buried and Me return to the UK, just six months after their two-set extravaganza at Arctangent Festival 2025. Supporting their 2025 opus The Blue Nowhere, this tour sees one of prog metal’s most important acts prove that they still deserve their place in the scene, 10 albums and 26 years into their career.
The rest of the bill is composed of two of the UK’s brightest new bands. Prog metal new-bloods You Win Again Gravity open the night, followed by the djent-adjacent Ihlo as main support, fresh off their largest ever tour, supporting Leprous in Europe. Tonight’s show is a reflection of how alive the prog metal scene is, particularly in the UK. A close to sold-out Islington Assembly Hall is a room far larger than a band as unashamedly inaccessible as Between the Buried and Me should be able to play, and yet, here they are.
You Win Again Gravity
You Win Again Gravity are up first, and immediately prove how they earned their place on the tour. From the opening notes of ‘Dreadbound’, their blend of catchy melodies and melancholy dreamscapes carves a unique space for them. It quickly becomes clear that no one sounds quite like You Win Again Gravity, a lofty compliment for a band so new to the national touring circuit.
Proggy flourishes and rhythms are draped over a post-hardcore skeleton, and piano parts blanket the room in equal parts tranquil serenity and burning paranoia. Witnessing such a fresh take on prog metal in the opening slot of a bill is an exciting feeling, one made more intense by the lack of bands one could even compare to You Win Again Gravity. Sure, there are shades of other acts in their sound, but it’s just that – mere shades.
In a genre that’s felt ironically stagnant in recent years, You Win Again Gravity act as a long-overdue shot in the arm. There’s a feeling that a band this fresh was inevitably going to end up here, supporting one of the largest bands in their genre. There’s also a feeling that this is the smallest that You Win Again Gravity will ever be, and it’s only a matter of time until they release an album on par with The Contortionist‘s Language, or Corelia’s Nostalgia.
Ihlo
Ihlo are on second, careening on to stage with the energy of a band who’s only just hit the road. Of course, this is actually their 25th show in just 5 weeks. Fresh off the back of a huge European tour in support of Leprous, the relative-newcomers command the stage like a band who’s been headlining venues like this for years. There’s a confidence seen in vocalist Andy Robison’s eyes that is usually reserved for musicians 20 years deep into their career. This confidence is, of course, earned. Ihlo’s set comprises the best songs of their excellent 2025 album Legacy, performed with perfect precision, and startling emotional presence.
This immaculate performance is reflected in the crowd’s reaction, with the type of pitting and interaction usually reserved for headlining acts. It’s easy to imagine that a decent portion of the crowd are actually here to see Ihlo and only Ihlo, a feeling that grows stronger when a couple get engaged in the pit during the heaviest part of ‘Wraith’. After 40 minutes of their newest material, Ihlo closes out their set with the title track from their debut album, ‘Union’, bringing the set to a close with a tremendous climax that gives the impression that these musicians were born to perform here, tonight.
Between the Buried and Me
It’d be easy for a band like Between the Buried and Me to phone it in. After almost 20 years on top, it feels like no one would complain if they appeared on stage, lifelessly played through their greatest hits, and left 90 minutes later. Instead, BTBAM hit the ground running, determined to tear through a set that comprises twenty years of their catalogue of masterworks. Starting as they mean to go on, the set begins with 2025’s ‘Absent Thereafter’, an audible flashbang that fuses country hoe-downs with some of the quintet’s heaviest riffs. This is a band that isn’t content to become a relic, to be seen as a mere legacy act. Almost twenty years after their landmark record, Colors, they still have what it takes to be on top, and by god are they going to prove it.
There’s an understanding across the room that this is a band with a new lease of life, a band determined to show that their excellence didn’t stop with Colors, that they never stopped releasing landmark records. Despite its extended runtime, the set only includes one song from Colors, the fan-favourite ‘Sun of Nothing’. Instead of playing the old classics, the band instead reach into their discography’s strangest corners, bouncing between eclectic ragers from their latest album, and deeper-than deep cuts from their vast catalogue. Their newest touring member, Tristan Auman, is a large contributor to this new-found energy. Filling in on stage as a rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist, Tristan feels right at home alongside the rest of Between the Buried and Me, nailing every riff with immaculate precision, and bending every lead to a shape of his liking.
The highlight of the set comes in the encore, after 65 minutes of overwhelming technical mastery. Mechanical owl sounds ring out before the band launch into ‘Silent Flight Parliament’ and ‘Goodbye to Everything – Reprise’, a pair of fan favourites that even the most hardcore UK fans had come to terms with never hearing live. The crowd clearly understands just how lucky they’ve gotten, prompting even those that were begging for more songs from Colors to exclaim aloud that they can’t believe what they’re seeing. 17 minutes later, it’s all over, and the whispering synths that close out the band’s final reprise ring across the venue, with a sizable chunk of the audience stood toward the stage, stunlocked, unable to return to normal life despite the blistering venue lights letting them know the show is over.
After tonight’s performance, it’s hard to believe that I once wondered if Between the Buried and Me were coming to the end of their career. Now, in the afterglow of one of the best nights of prog metal in recent memory, it’s hard to imagine a scene without them.