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“Fuck off, I’m full” was a measured response to Between The Buried And Me’s final album, Colours II. The 78-minute opus was a maximalist ode to music’s malleability, sardining loss of life steel, salsa, bluegrass, metalcore, Crash Bandicoot samples and extra inside a prog steel tin. As a thematic sequel to their 2007 breakthrough, Colours, it labored. As a standalone, it excelled.
Certain, it was lots, however every unhinged component pushed, pulled, complemented the subsequent. Sarcastically described by vocalist Tommy Rogers as ‘“heavy yacht rock”, it helped BTBAM squeeze one in every of their famed ideas by once they thought they had been out of steam.
4 years later, yacht rock’s nebulous traits are not a throwaway joke. They circle the perimeters of The Blue Nowhere’s title monitor and trample onto Issues We Inform Ourselves In The Darkish’s King Crimson-cum-Sure deck, spotlighting Dan Briggs’ showy bass solo. Thus far, so tech-metal-jazz-fusion-space-age-DevinTownsend-whatever.
It’s batshit, bugshit, bullshit. For those who actually dislike the band, it’s utter dogshit. However for those who’re a paid-up BTBAMphile? Welcome again to the circus – solely this time, it’s much less The Best Showman, extra a carpark funfair exterior Skegness.
Door #3’s carnival-esque groove, replete with Tommy’s raggedy scatting, feels like Korn going psychological on the dodgems. God Terror, saturated with industrial percussion and compressed riffing, sails for NIN and docks someplace in Pitchshifter’s port.
That’s to not say BTBAM have been fully blown off beam. It’s simply {that a} sizeable chunk of the leftfield pivots really feel wacky and cloying. The random falsetto bark harboured in Door #3 is actively annoying, as is Psychomanteum’s jaunty pierside piano. Most tech-death blasts really feel like ironic jump-scares, skits, moderately than an elite band’s cargo.
After they hit, although, they’re extra juiced-up than a pint of undiluted Ribena. Absent Thereafter’s heavy steel hoedown reveals unbelievable craft, funky bass and barn-burning guitar breathlessly Frankensteining 11 minutes collectively.
Waves of orchestration are a welcome shock throughout the album, too. The title monitor’s Devin-ish arpeggios swell into The Blue Nowhere’s cash shot, Tommy crooning the ‘Looking, misplaced in synthetic’ refrain like Ville Valo chartering a ferry filled with sadboys to the Maldives.
Now not anchored to a strict idea, BTBAM had the prospect to create islands, every music a vacation spot in its personal proper. As an alternative, they really feel bitty, fragmented. The album sways between proggy, off-kilter grandeur and ragtime jestery, not fairly teasing both facet laborious sufficient. In order for you the previous, Devin Townsend is offered for events, funerals and cruises; the latter’s coated by bands like Diablo Swing Orchestra. Nothing right here moors itself near Revolution In Limbo’s euphoric climes or the bends-inducing thrill of Prehistory, each current on Colours II.
That The Blue Nowhere comes from 4 blokes’ brains is objectively spectacular. However for 71 minutes jammed with concepts, there are scant hooks on show. If it’s taken BTBAM this lengthy to seem even vaguely rudderless, it’s at the very least testomony to their near-perfect catalogue. They’re human, fallible, however by no means boring.
The Blue Nowhere is out September 12 through InsideOut. Between The Buried And Me tour North America from September 14 and the UK/Europe from February 19 2026. For the total record of dates, go to their official web site.
