You’re either for or against what Between the Buried and Me has done to grind metal.  The form is no longer dictated by continuously forked-rhythm mandates which Napalm Death and Morbid Angel gorged themselves upon for years.  Between the Buried and Me’s ALASKA opened up the possibility of new horizons amidst a brute ugly din of aggression and ridiculous bpms.  Their 2007 masterpiece COLORS proved grind metal had previously-unthinkable space to accommodate for brainy mathematics, blurring prog and outside-the-box genre shenanigans ala Mr. Bungle. 

Fact of the matter, Between the Buried and Me is one of the metal revival’s most important groups along with Mastodon, Isis, Opeth and Dillinger Escape Plan.  This is a band looking to not only break molds, but they seek a yin and yan battleground between refinement and chicanery.  Almost everything Between the Buried and Me has sought to dabble with in the past has been watertight and soundly entertaining.  COLORS is grind metal interpreted by the schools of Pink Floyd and Mike Patton.  For their subsequent release THE GREAT MISDIRECT, consider the Patton influence a continued gimme while Between the Buried and Me leafs through the complex pages of classic Yes.  When you have music this precariously complex, the upfront expectation should be a modern-day CLOSE TO THE EDGE and that seems to be the point with this album.  Then again, some listeners may flag Between the Buried and Me’s 18-minute closer “Swim to the Moon” as grind metal’s answer to SONGS FOR TOPOGRAPHICAL OCEANS.

By now, those deeply-acclimated with Between the Buried and Me know the rulebook in this camp was burned a long time ago.  With THE GREAT MISDIRECT, Dan Briggs and company have the art of provocation down to a tee.  The somewhat-reduced thrash and grind parts are held in check by continuous syncopation and per usual oddball flashes such as carnival-swing merges, dusty highway twangs, lounge lizardry, marina breezing, Atari-esque twittering and even well-planted horse neighs. 

Of course the operative word with THE GREAT MISDIRECT is “prog.”  By time actual speed and death metal comes into the scheme on the second track “Obfuscation,” its impact is assuredly more devastating.  This seems to be the apparent point Between the Buried and Me is trying to make with this album.  When they turn the tigers loose on THE GREAT MISDIRECT, you freakin’ feel it, given all Between the Buried and Me makes you consume before and after each throat-rasping, bpm-expelled detonation.  Even when “Disease, Injury, Madness” shoots a metallic wind funnel during its opening minutes, the suddenly-settled fusion and acoustic cloud drifts it lollygags into before stamping back into metal droves is comfortably numb genius.  The way this one throws a wailing funk ‘n dust strut before whispering back into a fusion siesta then coming off like Danny Elfman-meets-Fantomas raging inferno in the finale…wowzers.   Consider the same two constituents in the piano-dashed cabaret of the damned opening to the utterly brilliant “Fossil Genera – A Feed from Cloud Mountain,” Lord ‘a mercy…

Longtime fans of this group from their self-titled debut of 2003 and THE SILENT CIRCUS thereafter have learned to evolve with the changes Between the Buried and Me has subjected them to.  In many ways, THE GREAT MISDIRECT is masturbatory nerd metal like COLORS before it, but the ride this time is similarly breathtaking.  It’s impossible not to feel elevated by the grandiose bells and strings-aided finale of the 12-minute “Fossil Genera – A Feed from Cloud Mountain” given all of the passionate rage and sedation setting it up



“Swim to the Moon” is the most indulgent composition Between the Buried and Me has written to-date, there’s no escaping the fact.  If you’re a music techie, you’ll be blown to smithereens by the complicated algorithms and jerked-out time signatures, much less the external nuttiness along the way.  Still, Between the Buried and Me spill more glue into this18 minute marathon it’s utterly impressive. 

So very few prog metal acts today possess the maturity to challenge the norms as dramatically as Between the Buried and Me has.  Blowing smoke around the equally-impressive new album by Dream Theater, and staking bragging rights claims against Mastodon’s magnum opus CRACK THE SKYE for the year’s best, THE GREAT MISDIRECT is the sound of a metalhead’s Ph.D from the school of Between the Buried and Me.



www.betweentheburiedandme.com

**Ray Van Horn, Jr. is also the host of The Metal Minute (www.metalminute.com) as well as a contributing writer to Dee Snider’s House of Hair Online, DVD Review.com, About.com Heavy Metal and Hails & Horns and AMP magazines

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