I was late to the game on this terrific band out of Raleigh, North Carolina, having first heard them about a year ago despite having read a lot of good press about them prior to that. It's been about 10 years since their first album, so to me and the glacial pace of my discovery of new music, they're a pretty new band. I have a feeling they'll be moving their way up my list of faves as I am exposed to more of their inventive music and virtuosic playing. It's hard to pin Between the Buried and Me into a specific subgenre, although they're unequivocally metal. Maybe schizo-metal would best describe it as they're all over the map. I suppose they'd be most accurately labeled progressive, with death a close second. But there's really everything here: thrash, instrumental, classic and alternative metal all get quite a bit of time at the forefront. And wow are they good. They play all styles with great understanding, technical facility and swagger.
Ants of the Sky was the first BTBAM song I heard, and it's a doozy. It leaps out of the blocks with an uptempo death-ish opening with guitar work reminiscent of Yngwie's blistering arpeggios and Children of Bodom's drive and screaming. It quickly gets artier with a jazzy instrumental segment from 0:41 to 1:52, passing through a soft keyboard pad to an anthemic heavy rock fanfare and back to the fast opening feel. The vocal sections are short; the song's really an instrumental epic with a few brief vocal bits of contrast. I know it's a long song, but give it a listen through for some really interesting juxtaposition of styles from all over the map (the biggest shocker of which is the old-style country at 11:45) and some truly impressive playing.
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