Between the Buried and Me - The Blue Nowhere (2025)^{Release ID: 62546}

I never want to hear another complaint about my harsh criticism of modern Dream Theater ever again!

BTBAM (Between the Buried and Me) showed us three years ago that they may have been running out of collective ideas with Colors II. I can thank the first Colors record for being one of the key contributors for allowing me to enjoy new extreme metal genres like death metal and metalcore. Colors II felt like a return to that style following a couple of releases where the band decided to take a more accessible route on The Great Misdirect. Colors II while a good album as well as a hybrid of styles, it just did not resonate with me that much. So much of my discourse surrounding The Blue Nowhere came from figuring out how the formula would adapt.

The Blue Nowhere is not your typical BTBAM record. This album is much more avant-garde and less metalcore than ever before. I was taken aback by how much intentional dissonance was given to the record, but the record flew by despite its over seventy-minute runtime. The bands ability to write theses long, complex song structures, while still making them feel connected is just as good as it was during the late 2000s. "Absent Thereafter" and "Slow Paranoia" immediately stand out among the rest. The first promotional single and leadoff track, "Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark" has a remarkable sense of pacing as to not overwhelm the listener with too much of the avant-garde obtuseness right out of the gate. Then "God Terror" hits you like a ton of bricks and reminds you that BTBAM used to play a rare progressive metalcore. The pacing of The Blue Nowhere with interludes like "Pause" and "Mirador Uncoil" serve their purpose so well, and the final run of four tracks is incredible. Two eleven minutes epics with "Psychomanteum" and "Slow Paranoia", which are both heavy, avant-garde and surprisingly concise, before dropping everything down for "The Blue Nowhere" and "Beautifully Human" to a cool, calm and reflective pace as the album circles back on itself. BTBAM sense of pacing is as good, if not better, than it has been since The Great Misdirect.

This is what progressive music should be; these acts should not be sitting idly by and rereleasing the same album ad nauseum for a quarter of a century because "that's what got us popular in the first place". Meanwhile, bands like Sleep Token, who are not progressive, are spinning circles around the so called "giants" of the genre. BTBAM are not going to settle making cookie cutter progressive metal and The Blue Nowhere proves that. This is BTBAM for a new era. Even if this turns out to be a one off project and they return to sounds closer to The Great Misdirect after this, at least they will have this one late era gem.

Best Songs: Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark, Absent Thereafter, Slow Paranoia, Beautifully Human, Door #3