COLORS II

Dream Theater makes an album: Everyone criticizes it for being emotionally dead and for wanking too much. Gets called "more of the same".

Between The Buried And Me makes an album: Everyone calls it a masterpiece even though it wanks as three times as much, has barely any memorable memories and is literally more of the same thing they've been doing for one decade.

Seriously, how do you even listen this record from beginning to end without ignoring how pretentious it is? I don't like bands like Opeth but you can tell from a mile away that their records have an objective, they're not messy and flow very well, the songs are cohesive yet dynamic, and they're not a mindless collection of pieces. And no, BTBAM fans, putting tiny transitions between tracks doesn't make it more cohesive, if anything it makes it look lazy.

Most records by Between The Buried And Me (I despise that band name) are a completely directionless compilation of riffs that the band put together to surprise prog-metal newcomers, but the lack of memorable melodies (which are something Haken, Opeth and Leprous are very capable of making) make this a tedious listen.

The over-the-top wanking gets old really fast and the growls are seriously the worst-sounding growls I have ever heard. The time-signature changes and breakdowns are so common they stop being special or outstanding and instead it ends up feeling like if someone gave you the same soup a hundred times. This band can play, they proved it all the way back in "Alaska" where they were already doing this sort of music, but it was more creative because it was their first that sounded like such, and now all I really want is to see the band make memorable music. But not memorable in a negative way, because I can assure you I will definitely remember this record as the definition of everything I hate in progressive metal.

Not a single second stuck with me, and I listened all SEVENTY EIGHT minutes of it. It was torture! Bands like Haken or Dream Theater may have been doing similar, generic albums recently, but they have wonderful melodies that they perfect merge with technicality, it's a little from everything, and it's very enjoyable. This is not a little from everything, it's everything from something little (and that little is: wanking).

Two Stars because their fans seem to enjoy this somehow. I'm gonna go clean my ears with Haken, be right back.

My second impression:

To be fair, I have found myself enjoying this album a lot. It has grown on me, and have gotten to the point of liking it as much as Parallax II. It is a very hard record to get into but very rewarding. Revolution In Limbo, Fix The Error, Bad Habits, The Future Is Now and Human Is Hell are brilliant tracks.

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