COLORS

I never thought in a million years I would be the one to call myself a BTBAM fan. The self titled debut just sounded like an awful attempt at mixing hardcore with some form of death metal, without being deathcore, and it failed miserably. Though having a few good moments it was nothing to really deserve diving into. The same is said for both Silent Circus and Alaska. At times they do show moments of pure beauty and all out technical wizardry, which layed foundation of what was to come, but it still sounded a little too grind to be prog. Then in 2007 Colors came, and it changed the way BTBAM would be seen forever. No longer were they a second rate hardcore/death metal fusion band, they made their jump up into full on prog-metal. The first 3 tracks from Colors didnt do much for me in the beginning either and I was just about to give up on them once again until 'Sun of Nothing' began. I never had a moment of such shock and surprise before and not since. I was completely blown away. Everything about the second half of Colors is something to be admired and adored. From soft moments of beauty, fluid jazz guitar solos and even a country breakdown make they way to the surface of this band's trademark style of progressive death metal. If it werent for those first 3 old-school BTBAM songs, this would be a lock for one of prog's all time classics.

Now only if they can fuse the sound of Colors with something a little more along the lines of clean singing (since his clean singing is amazing for the few minutes he showcases them) we will have our new golden standard for what tech/extreme prog metal can and should be!