Between the Buried and Me: ‘The Blue Nowhere’ Review
Album artwork for The Blue Nowhere
After a somewhat tumultuous recent history when it’s come to lineup changes, Between the Buried and Me (BTBAM) have returned with another studio record The Blue Nowhere. Poised to be “their most eclectic record yet”, the record deviates in a slightly less conceptual structure – despite still being labelled as a concept record in the press releases. Make your minds up! Although it’ll be a little tricky for any casual listener of BTBAM to pick up the story of what is going on given how aggressive and quick vocalist Tommy Rogers sings.
In fact there are few vocalists that I feel are as successful with harsh vocals as they are with cleans – one of which being Christian Älvestam of Scar Symmetry fame, but Tommy really does have something special going on in his pipes. But less about that, more about the record.
Opening number Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark was and is a fantastic first single and opener to the record. The panned clean funk guitars at the start have ear-wormed their way into my brain in the best way, and the heavier dabbles of synths and drum samples really show a new level of compositional refinement from the band – particularly so in the outro which I adore.
Later on we have Absent Thereafter which features a bluegrass inspired solo combined with honky tonk piano later in the track continues a recurring theme of style sprinkled into their historic works that provides them their whimsical elements alongside the brutal screaming from Tommy Rogers which is as consistently great as ever.
The interlude track Mirador Uncoil is an absurdist whimsical break that I always come to appreciate in albums like this – giving things a bit of breathing room from the heavy sonic palette, as well as the meandering compositional structure. Leading straight into Psychomanteum, which does exactly that bringing forward all of those BTBAMisms that we’ve all come to expect as we jump around from riff to riff.
Maybe it’s in my head, but the textural thickness of the guitars in a few places across this album overall feel a touch thinner. And that’s not necessarily a good or bad thing – it’s just slightly different from an arrangement perspective. We’re used to BTBAM‘s work being incredibly dense, and that is very much still the case for The Blue Nowhere – however some moments on the record have more breathing space sonically, and as such the production on this record feels more immaculate than usual. Given Jens Bogren is behind the mix for the record, I wouldn’t expect anything less given his reputation in this genre.
The track Slow Paranoia ended up being a favourite of mine, once again because of the mass of orchestral whimsey, but also the minor to major melodic hook later on in the track that quite frankly has slithered its way into my head in all sorts of moments during my days in recent weeks. Calling songs “epics” in reviews seems to be cliché nowadays, but I must say that this track firmly is one. Having a theramin-esc backing solo as well as xylophones darting in and out of the texture in this track solidifies the ‘prog’ label of the band that’s for sure!
Have the band put together another banger of an album? I would have to say absolutely. I’ve found it very hard to be critical of this release which is why I felt compelled to write about it after a bit of a personal writing drought for Proghurst which is always a good sign of a great record. BTBAM are if nothing but consistent, and The Blue Nowhere is another fine addition to their discography that I have utterly fallen in love with.
