COLORS

This is the big one. You know when a band has a sort of album that's like their big moment, you know like Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Peppers, Lift Your Skinny Fist, Metropolis Part 2, you know stuff that is so good that even till' today you can hear someone talking about it on discord or RYM or heck even on the wretched filth that is 4Chan. For Between The Buried and Me it is Colors. This one was my introduction to the band and I think that fact was for good reason. This album, plain and simple, is a masterpiece. The reason for it being a masterpiece is due each and all of the 8 tracks on this basically 60+ minute epic are music that stands the test of time for all to hear.

The album starts off much like The Silent Circus actually with a split apart track called Foam Born. It is a song possibly about two people with one trying to improve too much upon themselves and the other simply not having it, possibly in relation to burning yourself out where one part of you tells you to keep going while the other just wants to stop and settle things down. Part A, The Backtrack, is a short prelude of sorts for the whole album. It starts with a piano section that builds into some climatic guitar riffs. It's short and sweet. As it rises and falls it gives the listener an epic start to the album's sound and concept, clearly more about evolving to the extreme. Part B, The Decade Of Statues, explores more awesome and heavy sounds and materials. It goes for a strong beat, where the drums lay down in tandem with the growls and riffs. It creates a wild marching beat for the song to go through. I cannot help but find these two part songs to be amazing startups for this album.

The next track that comes afterwards is Informal Gluttony. The song starts and ends with a more Eastern and dooming sound with the guitars having a sort of middle eastern edge to them. The rest of the song is super heavy with some amazing growls and riffs, but the real treat of this song is the chorus. The chorus is just the repetitive and soft hymns of the line 'Feed Me' definitely in relation to humanities need to consume and conquer over all. Everything surrounding this song combines elegant melodies with ravenous riffs and growls. Much like its meaning the two sides clash where one dominates the other, almost like a battle. However this battle isn't a weakness in the song, it is a strength. It creates a strong yet clashing balance between the hardcore riffs of the verses and the soft hymns of the chorus, however one thing dominates the both of them and that is the middle eastern drums at the end. It is a song with two sides that lose to a third in a poetic and brilliant fashion.

After that is my personal favorite track off this album and that is Sun Of Nothing. This song is so juicy and brimming with content. The extreme riffs and beats at the start, the epic guitars near the middle, and the softer melodies past the halfway point, and the end wrapping it all back around to the heavy stuff, it is just so good, and how it all interconnects into each other is just so brilliantly done. This song has some pretty awesome lyrics and meaning, about a man who is fed up with the world and goes on a space voyage into the sun. This isn't the first nor last time the band has made any mentions of space travel, but this one is definitely one of their more notable aspects in that regard. It just builds and builds into an epic climax and the lyricism alone makes this song feel epic in every way possible. Such an amazing track and one of my favorites from this band.

Next up is Ants Of The Sky. This is definitely the weirdest song from the bunch. It has a ton of awesome riffs, something that we've come to expect, but they lead those riffs and melodies into something bizarre, an old time ragtime number. I am not even kidding. It's also the only song without an epic tale or some humanitarian meaning, it's just about a drunk guy and his bar buddies being drunk as all hell. Now of course this might make the song dumb or weak in compared to the rest of the album, but as Tommy puts it in a interview, 'It's the meat and potatoes of Colors'. The album would not be complete without a little silliness or something more carefree. This album is definitely a representation of humanity in all its facets. Our drive to evolve, consume, live, die, all that stuff, but it also acknowledges that sometimes people can just be fun to hang around with and sometimes we can be dumb at times. This album is our hues personified into characters and songs in this loose concept. It strikes a balance between acknowledgment and analytical prowess.

Prequel to the Sequel is up next and it's actually a prequel to the song Lost Perfection on their sophomore album, The Silent Circus. It's a song that tells the past events of the the cut in half song where it follows a widow departing from her deceased love to find new resolve with a newborn child. It is definitely a piece to comfort those who have lost yet found something new. It's almost an allegory for the band's departure from their more metalcore roots in favor of more melodic and progressive death metal. It is also an allegory on destruction and creation, life ends and begins all the same, and the lyrics of a beheaded man and a newborn child definitely gives way to a perfect representation of that type of subject matter. It is a beautiful thematic song that is combined with the usual amounts of epicly intense riffs and growls.

Next up is Viridian, a short instrumental track. It is definitely a staple for the band to give a small little break track so the listener can possibly reflect and understand what they listened to. With such an intense sound it makes sense to make a song that allows their audience to take a breather. It is calming, and has an ambient layer to it, signifying this band's ever changing sounds.

And it all leads into the climatic finishing track, White Walls. It sweeps you off your feet with the perfect amount of riffs, growls, and melodies to create an ending worthy for Colors. Every layer and moment in this track clearly has a level of professionalism that has spawned after, at the time of this album's release, 5 whole years of perfecting the band's craft. Everything from Tommy's growls, the drumming, the riffs, and so much more just makes this track into an epic finale. In fact this song is a love letter to their fans and their feelings for what they have created. This album is all things that make us human. Our fears, our lives, our decisions, our hunger, our evolution, and for the last piece, and our love. This last piece is one that I think makes this album even more of the masterpiece it already is, and clearly the band wanted the world to love it as much as they love the world, and I think that entire sentiment is really pretty.

What more can I say about this album? This album, front to back, is a master class of progressive metal. Every song just feels so good to listen to. It's rare for me to say this, but this album is an essential listen. Every song is absolutely amazing and deserves all the love they can truly get. Trust me, I guarantee you'll find something to love with this work. This album is just so grand, and it's just one of their many masterpieces in their catalog of works, which is insane. I am fanboying at this point, and this review is already long enough as it already is, so I'll end it here, but do listen to it because it is so, so, so good!