“Ripple through hallucination. Fade to my blue space.”
After twenty five years as a band and eleven full-length releases, I was sure that Between the Buried and Me had run out of surprises to give me. In reality, The Blue Nowhere gives the impression that the past twenty-five years of trailblazing progressive metal was actually Between the Buried and Me holding back all along. Finally, they refuse to keep their genre blending tendencies at arm’s length, and become something, yet again, that progressive music has never before seen.
Intent on subverting expectation from the very beginning, the band eschew their long tradition of a low-key opening. Instead, they propel the listener straight into lead single “Things We Tell Ourselves In The Dark”. This eight minute kaleidoscope of a song is a bizarre hall of mirrors with no exit. Funk and metal guitars trade off seemingly nonsensical lines against each other as vocalist Tommy Rogers sings of fever dreams and esoteric machinery. After a barrage of strange rhythms and stranger genre fusion, the song exhales into a bridge that gives the listener some reprieve. The lyric “trapped in twisted spaces” flies out over slap bass, warning the listener of what the next nine tracks have in store for them. The Blue Nowhere is a collection of these twisted spaces, seventy-one minutes of surrealist geometry that you can’t help but find yourself trapped in. Up is down, down is up, and there is no way to predict the new impossible space that hides behind each closed door.
After the most baffling lead single in recent memory, Between the Buried and Me launch into the equally brilliant “God Terror”. This piece plays like a trip through a dying mechanical brain, pistons and explosions and distorted yells firing across its synapses. Across six minutes, Between the Buried and Me cover more sonic ground than many bands manage to do across an entire record. Synths, electronic drums, and sound effects penetrate through an angsty core, as the vocals sprint through varied inflections. All of this mayhem is put to rest with the heaviest breakdown the band have created since 2012’s “Telos”.
It’s at this point in my first listen of the album that I found myself speechless. The Blue Nowhere is uniquely exhausting. So many genres and palettes of sounds are raced through, and it’s easy to feel like Between the Buried and Me are trying to leave you behind in the dust. It’s a testament to the quality of this record that being so overwhelmed was euphoric rather than offputting. Perhaps the biggest feat this album pulls off is that the constant genre blending never comes off forced, with each bizarre section flowing perfectly into the next, despite often having nothing in common other than an underlying lunacy. The Blue Nowhere is the perfect title for this record: this is a whirlwind trip through a space unbound by convention.
It soon becomes clear that every track on The Blue Nowhere is going to be a leap into the unknown. “Absent Thereafter” is a ten-minute fusion of bluegrass chicken picking and nasty downtuned riffs, a confounding piece of music that could only be created by this band. Once the chaos comes to a close, a self-aware musical theater-style “goodnight!” stares straight into camera, the band completely aware of what they’ve just pulled off. With that, the first act of The Blue Nowhere comes to a close, and Between the Buried and Me become a new beast entirely. The next thirty-three minutes of the album are where the gloves truly come off. The band stare the prog abyss in the face and jump in with two feet, following every musical impulse that comes their way.
The relaxed menace of “Pause” gives way to the circus-infused death metal that opens “Door #3”. After a short flamenco break, a chorus that feels like an airy reprieve lulls you into relaxation before the circus comes to town again. Tommy Rogers breaks out a character voice that would make Mike Patton blush as the groove stomps away around him. The next track, “Mirador Uncoil”, is an interlude that could be ripped straight from the catalogue of any number of avant-garde acts. Shades of Estradasphere, Secret Chiefs 3, and Darth Vegas are mixed into a concoction that acts as a palate cleanser for what’s to come. “Psychomanteum” is next, and is Between the Buried and Me’s most relentless track in over a decade. Mathy death metal is intercut with bizarre piano passages, character voices, and cryptic screams that allude to a deeper meaning I’m still yet to glean. Lyrics like “time is the chemical – the addiction” convey a yearning for something that’s out of reach, delivering a shot of emotion and misty wanting to a track mostly concerned with beating you over the head from angles you didn’t know existed.
By this point, the chaos has reached fever pitch. The gauntlet finally comes to a close with “Slow Paranoia”, a psychotropic rager that makes you feel like your brain is being turned into slushy. Lyrics ask you to “ripple through hallucination” as if winking at the camera once again, while the most bizarre section of music that the band have ever produced underscores the request.
Every track on The Blue Nowhere is excellent, but this gauntlet of tracks – from “Pause” to “Slow Paranoia” – is generational. In a discography full of mind-bending performances, these are among the best. Every member goes above and beyond what has come before, and pushes themselves to new heights. Impeccable production from Jamie King and Jens Bogren allow every single note of this lunacy to be heard perfectly. Duelling guitar parts and counterpoint basslines are heard as clearly as atmospheric background textures.
With the most exhilarating stretch of music the band have ever created over, Between the Buried and Me perform their final magic trick. With the listener disassembled and overwhelmed, they begin the act of rebuilding you. The final two tracks on the record are the cure for the delirium that’s been planted in you – a musical panacea that sticks with you long after the final note has been played. The closing track is particularly healing. “Beautifully Human” is a final cathartic return home after an infinite time away. Its triumphant opening riff gives way to one of Tommy Roger’s most euphoric vocal performances ever before the revolving door of musical ideas opens up once again, just to bring the album home in the emotional bliss of simplicity. Paul Waggoner’s best guitar solo closes the infinite hallway of doors that the band have opened, and expels every emotional impulse it possibly can before the album fades to black.
The experience of listening to The Blue Nowhere is to be untethered from expectations built up over a lifetime of listening to music. It is dizzying, maddening, euphoric. For the first time since 2007’s Colors, Between the Buried and Me have created something that is not just essential, but so truly unique that it’s hard to imagine that another record will ever sound quite like this does. The Blue Nowhere is stupefying, beautiful, and ecstatic. It is an especially bright light in a discography of exceptional quality.
9.5/10
The Blue Nowhere is out September 12th via Inside Out.