BTBAM THE GREAT MISDIRECT CONTEST: WIN A WHOLE LOTTA COOL BTBAM STUFF
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 11:30am by MetalSucks
Between the Buried and Me’s new opus The Great Misdirect is finally out today! To celebrate, we’re holding a contest offering you the chance to win all of the awesome shit you see listed above. That sweet bass alone is worth the time it’s gonna take you to enter the contest, plus you get all that other gear and BTBAM merch.
You know we like to keep it simple and fun around here for our contests. To enter, simply leave a comment (with an email address you regularly check!!) telling us which BTBAM album is your favorite one and why. We won’t judge based on our own personal tastes, but we will judge based on how clever/funny/interesting/whatever your explanation is. So make ‘em good. We’ll pick a winner on Tuesday, December 8th and notify them via email shortly thereafter.
BTBAM have a whole slew of shows planned for the coming months, including this coming winter’s Orgasm Tour w/ Devin Townsend, Cynic and Scale the Summit that we announced earlier today. They also have a series of headline dates this Fall with Veil of Maya and the very excellent Animals as Leaders; full list after the jump.
Sat 11/07/09 Kettering, OH The Attic
Sun 11/08/09 South Bend, IN Elva’s Fiesta Club
Mon 11/09/09 Sauget, IL Pop’s
Tue 11/10/09 Iowa City, IA The Picador
Wed 11/11/09 Omaha, NE The Waiting Room
Fri 11/13/09 Lubbock, TX Jake’s Sports Cafe & Backroom
Sat 11/14/09 Wichita Falls, TX The Hangar
Sun 11/15/09 Austin, TX Emo’s
Mon 11/16/09 McAllen, TX The Incubator
Wed 11/18/09 Tulsa, OK The Marquee
Thu 11/19/09 Memphis, TN New Daisy Theatre
Fri 11/20/09 Birmingham, AL Five Points Music Hall
Sun 11/22/09 Jacksonville, FL The Edge
Mon 11/23/09 Columbia, SC New Brookland Tavern
Tue 11/24/09 Wilmington, NC The Soapbox
Colors cause I’ve listened to the entire thing drunk as fuck and only thought “When the fuck is the first song gonna be over?”
One and done. Well played. I fucking love BTBAM. I’ve never seen a self-sustained circle pit like I did during White Walls at the HOB Boston a few weeks ago. The hardcore/metal core bands always suggest it, (”let’s get the fucking circle pit goooooiiiinnnnggg!!”) but this one just happened. And it was EPIC.
dooood i was at that show too.
i dont know if you heard MORDECAI screamed in between every song, but that was me. I pick the silent circus because the mordecai/reaction combo is the greatest piece of music to ever flow into my ears. I need to listen to it while i sleep, or else i cant. all night, every night.
Hahah- I did hear that. In fact, I think I was standing pretty much right next to you. If you haven’t seen the Colors live DVD that came packaged with the disc, you MUST. It’s a weekly play at my house.
I think this one might have to win.
dude i just got goose bumps, i was at that show! i crowd-surffed durring white walls. SOOOOO amazing. best show ive ever been to, hands down
So did about a brazillian others. Hopefully you weren’t that kid that got dropped next to me. He was stunned. I reached down for him as did his friend and his friend was like “you ok?” The kid just stared at him and finally was like “yeah” and as soon as he said that, I saw a stream of blood run down the back of his neck from his skull. I grabbed his friend and was like “dude, *points at blood* you gotta get the fuck outta here.” They did.
Come to think about that, this happened during In Flames.
Yea dude. That was me and carl, in san antonio at the white rabbit? We stayed until about 5 of In Flames songs, then he passed out in my car and I spent all night in the ER with him. He fell right during the white walls solo. At lest I got to see all of BTBAM.
Fav. album has to be colors, because it got me into them. I really think all of their music is beyond just enjoying, it has become a part of me.
Colors, because I’m an equal opportunity listener. I also like listening to barfights.
I’d have to say that Alaska would honestly be my favorite album just because that album was truly what defined between the buried and me at that point in their career. I think it was then that they knew exactly where they were going at that point when it came out and with a steady line-up who still to this day continue to contribute to the ever expanding art of a special genre that BTBAM can only do. I have finally found that i truly love the hardcore scene with great bands like converge and Between the Buried and Me. A funny story that involved Colors, I was with my family in Puerto Rico visiting relatives there who didn’t know a inch of english, we were having a barbaque with the whole family when a cousin of mines went into my CD case and put in the radio that every one was listening to. It first goes through Foam Born and thats when Decades of Statues came on. After the first minute of it, my whole family just stared at me which isn’t the best part. During the song, my buddy ended up shitting himself not only because the situation I was in but also because he normally doesn’t eat spanish food. so while he was cracking up the poop just came out.Enough said, it smelled pretty bad at that point. Anyways, Congrats on the new album, The Great Misdirect. Its growing on me and is probably going to be my favorite album from you guys.
Eric_Sierra20@yahoo.com
one last comment.
Dream Theater is amazing and I don’t care what you say Paul, Dan does a fine job strumming that Bass.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f94c5rSyIMI
your beginning solo of the song “Alaska” reminds so much of wintersun’s “Beyond the Dark Sun” solo
The Silent Circus. It was very original for its time. Each track had a completely different vibe from the one before it. And the secret track is just goddamn hilarious!
Colors. Because it took my virginity.
I like Alaska the best!! here is a little tribute to the whole album and what each song means to me. I really hope you like it
sailing through the open sea
wile sirens hypnotized me
i became a refugee
in a land call Alaska
as i try to settle in
i was reminded how aggressive human nature can be
“we will soon live in peace, we will soon die in peace”
carved on the threes in memory of All Bodies
the creators of this righteous land
they introduced day and night
everything is just so right
but i’ll never forget that is always cold here in Alaska
man of power and status
the real untouchables?
humble fisherman despise them
and all because of their Croakies and Boatshoes
panoramic view
so come and peaceful
it calms the soul
just Breath In, Breath Out
memories of darker days
no individualism cause they all sound the same
demons who can steal your face
brought to you by Roboturner inc.
for those who were here before me
for those who laid a foundation of dreams
for those who gave it all when fatigue
you have won more then this Backwards Marathon
feeling ill from my long travel
i became a victim of an ongoing battle
bering this broken heart is a struggle
so i turned to the Medicine Wheel
flipping through pages i found the truth
written by the prophets 5 years before you
tales about a dark new generation
book tree page nine The Primer
moving one step ahead
thinking about taking tree back
priorities before your smiles
so i was told by Autodidact
slow but refined like falling snow flakes
with out words you conquered this stage
absolutely a master piece
engraved in to my hear with Laser Speed
there is nothing more to say
in this land is where ill stay
ill stick to my guns for now
till the day you prove me wrong
not just with colors but may be with a great misdirect
it’s hard for me to choose my favorite BTBAM album. Colors has been amazing to smoke weed to, but Alaska has a sentimental value to me because that happens to be the state I was born in. Selkies:The Endless Obsession is also the first BTBAM song I ever heard. I also love the oldies just because of how raw and agressive the vocals were. But I think I’m gonna have to go with Alaska on this one. I haven’t receieved the Great Misdirect yet, but I expect it to be a contender.
IT’S A MAHHHUUHHHOOOWWW!
The Man Land ftw
I was gonna say Alaska, but I never finished it, I just gave up halfway through because that old record, the self-titled spoiled me.
My favorite Between The burried and me Album is by far Colors, I downloaded it when my friend said they hated the album and the band, so pretty much i downloaded it just because It pissed em off. Than I started to listening to it more and more and god it was awesome it was like an orgasm to my ears I swear I may have had to change my creamy pants after it was over. everything else is good but nothing made me get the chills quite like this CD did. Incited so many emotions in me calmness, anger, sadness, happyness, everything. It trully was a musicgasm.
greatestsoxfan@aol.com
Maybe because it was the one that got me into this great band, i choose “The Silent Circus”
‘The Silent Circus’ wins for me, since it was my first listen to the band.
And I was completely sold on the band when I heard the power metal section of ‘Aspirations.’
Any band that heavy that breaks into a power metal break for no reason wins.
Been a huge fan ever since.
I am full of fail. Meant to write that it was the self-titled, not TSC.
The Great Misdirect is my favorite album from Between the Buried and Me, believe it or now. I was a fan of the album before it even released. I had the sampler track on their myspace on loop all the time, I downloaded the 2 song sampler when it was put online, and I was seemingly the only one in the crowd during their September 30th show in Louisville singing along to Obfuscation. “CLOSE ONE EYE…”
So anyway, I felt like kind of a dick when the album leaked about a week back and I downloaded it. The anticipation was killing me, I had to listen. I was literally blown away on first listen, always thinking “WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY WORLD”. Like you guys said, it has more “-er”, proggier, melodic-er, and ambitious-er. It was most certainly, in my opinion, better. This album was a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. This album changed how I think about music. I immediately bought the preorder the minute after Swim To The Moon’s last chord was stuck.
That night, I had a dream that I was in the desert, playing music with other random folks, like in Desert of Song, with the song’s melodies showing up throughout the dream.
It’s just truly an album I’ve been obsessing over for the past week, even as going as far as listening to the epic 18-minute track Swim To The Moon THIRTY SEVEN TIMES since this CD’s been put online, according to my iTunes and iPod statistics. That’s nearly 666 minutes of music.
Pathetic that I’ve had the song playing for a total of over 11 hours, I know. But I just love it that much.
and just in case putting my email in the email field when posting a comment isnt enough: jrowe3388@gmail.com
I would have to say their Self Titled record! Its so raw and new at the time! It leaves your ears chaffed!
My favorite is Alaska. Ya gotta love the bleeps, the SWEEPS, and the creeps.
Only one man would dare give me Raspberry!! LONESTAR!!
The Slient Circus because I hate clowns.
you win
My favourite would have to be The Silent Circus because when I was younger I would watch the video for “Mordecai” on those DVDs Victory Records felt the need to include in every release (I never understood this as my metal CDs would come with DVDs including pop punk and what not…certainly not appealing). Now never mind the music, my mum would let me listen to the song all I want…as long as I covered the TV. See, my mum REALLY loved Jesus. I wasn’t allowed to miss church on a weekly basis until I turned 16 (during these times ear bud headphones were my saviours, no pun intended). I’d come home regularly to listen to MORE gospel music than I had already heard at church (during these times, volume control and running away kept me sane). Anyways, my Jesus loving mum just didn’t like the video; she thought it was “sick and twisted.” Looking back on it, I don’t see why she thinks so. Maybe I’m just desensitized or maybe my mum’s just lame. Any band that gave the 14 year old me the power to piss off his mum was good in my books and for this ability I love this cd.
Wow… I bet you’re a serial killer now…
Alaska hands down, basically for one reason. I remember a friend of mine jumping in my car during Medicine Wheel and asking me when did I start listening to ambient crap, then The Primer kicked in and he was in shock.
Colors.
I imagine it would be what Pink Floyd sounds like if you were on acid…you know, without actually having to do LSD.
Hah, those two experiences aren’t even remotely comparable.
am i the only person who reads this blog thats actually done drugs
Has to be Alaska. I like the way they grew from the Silent Circus to a more progressive sound. With their new line-up and Alska being the first album from that line-up, they hit it. It was hard, heavy, soft, melodic, etc. all rolled into this labyrinth of music. Don’t get me wrong, Colors is jizztastical, but the foundation was layed down by Alaska. With the way that Jamie King (producer) recorded that album prettty much opened the door for the band to fly that much higher. I remember on my 23rd birthday I had way too much to drink one night and my wife was driving that night and we put in Alaska and we started listening to Selkies, so I decided to start dancing to it (I was totally off beat and everything), and I got those, “What the fuck is that guy doing?” kind of looks. Anyways, I love Alaska, I love the band, and I love the way they just keep not “Miisdirecting” thier fans. (Did you see what I did there! I took their new album name and made a little joke!)
Alaska. Selkies and Medicine Wheel damned near saved my life on a few occasions.
Alaska. The keyboard intro on Selkies alone is so fucking sick and epic to make it my favorite record. The prog of Colors and Great Misdirect are fine but Alaska is metal as fuck. From the wank guitar solos to the key solos… How can you go wrong with Alaska. Alaska is like BTBAM trying their hand at The Final Countdown.
mybloodypatton@gmail.com
Colors because I like metal in my hoedowns.
Codyfoss@live.com
Those are hootnannys!
BtBaM could easily turn a hootenanny into a hoedown. To them, it makes no difference.
touche. your’e alright……
Colors because you’re mom said so.
My favorite Between the Buried and Me album would have to be Colors because of how well each and every riff, lick, or fill flows into each other. Also because I’ve seen all of the songs off of Colors live 8 times and it never gets old.
My favourite BTBAM album is Colors because even when I’m having a crappy day that album is just so full of perfection that it picks me back up and no matter how many times you listen to it, it never stops being great.
Colors, because “Sun of Nothing” is the song that got me to stop laughing at them for being named after a Counting Crows lyric.
Colors because whenever I listen to it I blow my entrails out of my stomach onto the walls of my room, coating everything in a thick sheet of gore. Also, at the very end of the last track as I take my dying breath my head explodes, showering everything with brains. Brutal.
It’s Colors because, have you heard it?
word.
My favorite Between The Buried And Me Album is definitely The Silent Circus. Every single song on the album is completely flawless as is every riff and transition. Mordecai, their first hit single, gave them their current style of progressive metal. The hidden track at the end of the album, The Man Land really shows their personality and sense of humor. I don’t think i’ve ever laughed so hard at a serious song in my life.
I would have to say my favorite album is the new one, I mean the guitar and keyboard just sync so fucking well in this album, Also one of the other reasons i like it is cause me and my friends got really drunk and listened to it and had a blast just beating each other up moshing around in his garage.
Colors is my favorite BTBAM record currently (TGM is still weighing in) because all the S/T only nerds hate it so much. New BTBAM >>>>> Old.
That is not to say that I don’t love old BTBAM as well, though.
Favourite BTBAM album? Talk about a hardy task. If I were to pick one based on sound and feel, Id throw the blue ribbon at “The Great Misdirect.” this album is more of A whimsical adventure than any past release. It’s music, but it seems to transcend all of the boundaries into an album that creates an adventure. That’s the only word that comes to mind; Adventure. If you’ve seen 2001: A Space Odyssey it may make more sense. The long scene where the viewer is flying through that spectrum of color and dazzling visuals! THAT’S what this album does for me :) all of the albums are absolutely great but this is an entirely new zone for BTBAM.
It all started with ‘Alaska’. Ever since then, my aspect on music changed entirely. It now wasnt about ‘what you could do and then leave it at that’, it was now ‘what can we do to blow your mind?’ Shortly thereafter I found ‘The Silent Circus’, then the self titled album. Hooked. Then ‘Colors’ came out, and well…look at it this way; I own and love ALL their albums entirely, and their music for that matter, to the point where my license plate is their acronym, and my first tattoo based off music is a half-sleeve inspired by ‘Colors’. ANYTHING they put out is phenomenal, and thats just the way it is. Long after they are gone, they can look back on their music and rightfully say ‘we will be remembered for this’
I would have to say colors…..I’ve listened and watched the colors album at least a million times to the point where the cd was so scratched is was unwatchable. Also the the cd in general has changed my life and the way i listen to music I hold music to a whole different standard because of colors!
My favorite BtBaM album is Colors. I’ve been playing bass a little over 3 years now and Dan Briggs is the best bass player in the metal EVER. Unlike most players in this genre who just sit back behind the guitars and can barely be heard, Dan is in the minority. Whether it’s that sick intro to Informal Gluttony or the sweet solo Viridian, his playing on that album got me hooked
I love all their albums but I’m gonna say The Silent Circus because it was the first. Also my prude of an ex hated every song off that album except “Shevanel, Take 2.” She especially hated it when I would blare “The Man Land” as loud as I could, but what else should one expect from a preachers daughter?
Uh. Self titled album was their first.
gg tho
Favorite album has to be “Colors”. I’ll keep it short…Colors is truly the only album in my collection that I can listen to over and over and over. I’ve never been able to do that with an album before. I usually listen to an album once all the way through and then I can’t listen to the whole thing until like a week later.
COLORS!! Why on earth would I need to tell you why the album is amazing?
Probably my favorite album is the mega CD I made with all of them on…. serious answer more than likely the self titled album as its where I fell in love with them and everytime I listen to More of Myself to Kill and Aspirations I shit myself!
Talk about hardest question
It’s an extremely difficult choice for me, between Colors and The Silent Circus.
Colors is an album I can listen to every day and never get bored of, which is a rare thing. However, the fact that Mordecai from The Silent Circus still gives me the shivers every time I hear it is a sign of something really quite special.
Well, my favorite is Alaska…you could as well record a polka and it would fit well! songss like Laser Speed make you think about how cool is the harmony, wile in the same time you think how cool it would be to break somebodies nose when listening some of the ohter songs on the album! :)
I think colors is my favorite BTBAM album. It’s what got me into BTBAM and i’m so glad that I started listening to them. Everytime I listen to colors so many emotions well up inside me it is incredible. When ever I talk to any person I know I always talk about BTBAM. I’m obsessed with their music!!!! BTBAM has changed my musical perception and their music has made me strive for something much more then the music I used to play. I swear BTBAM has saved my life on quite a few occations.When BTBAM came to my town I stood in line for 12 hours just to get in first and be in the front row.
Colors:
The listener never gets bored when Colors is playing. It’s one epic song. I swear if I ever became really rich (or maybe just when I figure out how), anytime I enter a room the intro to Prequel to the Sequel will play and four bald eagles will fly out behind me. …Majestic, indeed.
I am going to have to go with The Silent Circus. This album is major head bang,
ps. who won that bawl game?
+ Tommys lyric’s about rape
My favorite BTBAM album so far would have to be Colors. This is simply because of the sheer genius of the record. Not only is it one huge opus of music, it’s also has some of the most challenging technical passages in modern metal and incorporates almost every musical genre of the past 20 years. From the 11/16 breakdown in Ants of the Sky to the 7/8 to 4/4 switch between every measure in the beginning of Prequel to the Sequel, these passages are technically challenging enough, let alone the fact that they wrote these and incorporated them into a song, not just a rhythmic exercise. Then you have the vocal prowess in songs like Sun of Nothing and Informal Gluttony. His ability to switch between full on metal growls, pig squeals, and everything else straight into full voice singing is simply amazing. Putting everything amazing about Colors into one comment is simply impossible, but holy crap, the album is amazing and should rank up there with Debussy, Cage, Shostakovich, and late Beethoven.
I’d have to say Colors… ’cause i’ve never been so brainfucked in my life X’D… y literally felt like something was fucking my brain the first time i heard that album X’D
- I <3 BTBAM!! -
Alaska is probably my favorite because I too do not like people staring at my car and shirt.
Favorite BTBAM record is definitely Colors because of the hoedown throwdown at the end of Ants of the Sky. Nothing gets me more pumped than donning a straw hat, throwing on some overalls, and jigging the fuck out of anyone within a 300sq. foot radius. If Swim to the Moon had more squaredancing opportunities The Great Misdirect might be my number one.
I’m going to say Colors, because of the amazing range of dynamics and musical styles. Also, the polka breakdown in Prequel to the Sequel.
I cant begin to tell you how much your guys music means to me, it has honestly gotten me through so much. After my ex girlfriend(who doesnt shave ( she trims…?)) broke up with me, listening to all the emotion put in your music i was able to get mine out and i realized i hated bush. And my favorite album has got to be colors, i love all the albums alottt but colors just did it for me. I even spent like a year on your tab book, im getting there… I think. Did i write to much? I dont care you guys are such an inspiration<33 no homo
While I appreciate greatly all BTBAM albums, I’m going to have to say Colors is my favorite. It’s like a crazy musical journey, I feel like I’m high while listening to it because of the range of emotions that it touches. And the transitions are flawless and feel natural. It’s so relaxing, I always listen to it when I’m stressed.
Colors because its one of the few albums i can space out to while running. and its one of the most genre diverse albums ive ever heard
Colors because my girlfriend just broke up with me and I am launching into a depression that will only get better if I win this contest. That and i was pretty damn colorful. One time I did a review of every BTBAM song ever but I lost it. Do I win if I say its my birthday?
Colors has been my favorite album that Between the Buried and Me has produced to date. It is the one album that allows me to feel and express all of my emotions and I can listen to it no matter how I am feeling. Colors is a great opus that really makes you experience the highs in life, but still is a godsend when you are depressed. Many a time over the years I have felt like what is being described in Sun of Nothing close to ending everything and floating towards the sun. I listen to the album as a whole and realize that life isn’t that bad, and the man being described in the song really can overcome his decisions and make the best of his life. At the same time, I can listen to Colors and just lose myself in the music. Get caught up in the musicianship, the lyrics, and the sheer raw energy the album provides. Colors is going to be a classic album that my generation shares with everyone else in the years to come. I am proud that I was around for when it started. Thank you Between the Buried and Me for producing such a lifechanging album.
My best friend back in HS was a major fan of you guys. And I had a major crush on him. So, I got ALASKA to have something more in common between us. Yeah, the first BTBAM cd I got was because I liked a boy. But, it was totally worth it. I fell in love with alaska, and now have all of your CDs. . . :D
The Silent Circus.
I was on a self-financed tour in Mexico with my band in 2003, having about $30 in my pocket that had to last me for 15 days’ worth of food. The tour manager fucked up with the calculations so the little money I had brought had to be used to compensate for his retarded math skills. After successfully managing to survive for most of the 15 days by not moving all day except when playing, losing a lot of weight in the process, I had $3 left. I still had to eat on the 29-hour bus ride back to my country, and fate decided that we came to a record store. All of us were in the same financial situation, so we decided to kill some time looking at records, listening to good music, and being frustrated with not being able to buy them. I picked up the aforementioned BTBAM album, and asked the guy to play it. After I heard Mordecai, I decided I would rather have this CD than eat. I offered the $3 to the guy, hoping my starving demeanor would induce some sort of compassion in him, but no. The fucking jerk asked for $10, so no BTBAM for me. One day later I found myself sleeping on the bus terminal, having missed the bus home by one hour. It was December 24th, 2003.
Fast forward a month or so, having recovered both physically and financially, I decided to order the album online from Victory. Fate decided to stop being a cruel bitch and for some reason my copy was autographed by all current members of the band. This is why The Silent Circus is my favorite BTBAM album, and if I ever have the need to sell my CD collection I will never ever get rid of it. Also, the music is fantastic. Every listen brings me back to that tour, which despite the financial situation was one of the best times of my life.
+1
my favorite BTBAM album is colors when i heard this cd i knew BTBAM was a special band u guys just play what you like what you think sounds good you dont care if its normal or “in” haha i also a musician and thanx to this cd there are no limits i just play what i like mixing in all types of genres and this will change music for the better
Colors is my favorite. Not because it’s their most accomplished record prior to the Great Misdirect (haven’t heard any of their new stuff yet), but because whenever I listen to Colors, I always think of my daughter being born! You see, I bought Colors when it had first come out but because I had been so busy that I have not been able to give it my full attention. Well, one day my wife had gone out with her mother and sister for lunch and shopping and the gave me ample opportunity to delve head and psyche first into COLORS!!! Anyway, I put the CD in my stereo cranked it up and proceded to rock out. I was able to listen to the whole record undisturbed and when it ended I pressed play once more. This whole time my wife had attempted to call me due to an ‘emergency’, but because the stereo was so loud I could not hear the phone. It was up to the point where I was on Sun of Nothing until I saw the light on our house phone going blipping on and off and I decided to answer the phone. When I picked up the phone I decided to scream along with the lyrics, a spacemaaaaaan, a spacemaaaaan, THIS IS WHAT I AM! And low and behold, on the other end of the phone, it was my wife screaming at the top of her lungs WHERE *SCREAMS* ARE YOU!!!!!! I AM IN LABOR, I HAVE BEEN *SCREAMS* TRYING TO CALL YOU FOR THE PAST HOUR. MY WATER BROKE, I AM IN PAIN AND NOW YOU’RE TRYING TO TELL ME YOU’RE A *SCREAMS* SPACEMAN!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! YOU BETTER GET YOUR BUTT TO THE HOSPITAL IF YOU EVER *SCREAMS* WANT TO HOLD YOUR DAUGHTER!!!!! YOU DID THIS TO ME YOU JERK! YOU BETTER GET HERE *SCREAMS* OR I WILL KILL YOU!!!!!!! I immediately got off the phone, took the CD out of my stereo, got in my car, put Colors in my car stereo, cranked it up and started off to the hospital. When I finally got there, nothing but Colors was on my mind, though I was very excited about the birth of my daughter, but I had the ’spaceman’ lyric stuck in my head. It wasn’t maybe 10 minutes later that my daughter was delivered and when I first held her I was so elated and in awe that I finally get to kiss her and hold her that I started to sing (or attempt to *sing*) a spacemaaaaan, a spacemaaaaan, THIS IS WHAT I AM! over and over again without even realizing it. The nurses and doctor thouht it was cute (or weird, but they were smiling) and my wife was pissed, but too tired to be angry. Anyway, my daughter’s first word was spaceman or *pacema* in baby language, and to this day my wife still doesn’t know where that came from (my wife does not listen to metal). So, in short Colors = my baby daughter, and every once in awhile we get to rock out and go crazy to a very special album that me an my daughter are able to share a uniquie bond to.
The Great Misdirect cuz when tripping on triple c’s, listening to it makes it nearly impossible to differentiate between my wall and the oceans of this planet and all others
My favorite BTBAM album is Colors because liek thats when they rly started using there keyboards so much like Attak! Atacck!1
I am going to have to say The Silent Circus. Not only because that album got me into BTBAM to begin with but really got me into metal. I hadn’t listened to much up until a buddy of mine told me to listen to it and he dared me to say it wasn’t a good album. I listened, loved it, and now I’m the one introducing friends to metal with BTBAM.
coreysscott@gmail.com
Helps if I include the correct email addres, eh? coreyascott@gmail.com
My favourite album is Colours, first time I heard a song from this album was live and I felt immediately the amazing music this band plays!!! To me is the conjuction of all music history, in one song you can hear many music styles and that is amazing.
Its COLORS. not COLOURS….
Alaska is by far my favorite album because whenever I listen to it I can see Russia from wherever I’m then currently air guitaring the solo in Selkies: An Endless Obsession
^ WARNING: extremely lame joke attempt. Paul Waggoner has melted all my brain cells.
I enjoyed it.. was thinking the obvious Palin connection before reading this.
My favorite btbam album would have to be “The Silent Circus”. The memories made while listening to that album will forever be etched into my brain as one of the high points in my life. The album introduced me to this kind of music and 4 years down the road i still can’t pull it out of my cd player. Plus, that groove riff in Lost Perfection makes me want to destroy things!
So one day I was sittin on my ass with 2 bottles of tequila, bottle of SoCo, an assload of bitch beer and a 24 pack of Keystone thinking to myself “how can I make this fun?” I invited a bunch of my hombres over and threw a pretty sweet party. Then someone popped in Colors and then the real fun began. There it was, Ants of the Sky, the song that got EVERYONE going. Towards the end of the song begins the greatest thing to happen in musical history: A GODDAMN HOEDOWN. “What the hell’re you lookin at!?” Good ol Colors, best album by this great band.
Colors is my favorite so far……….But, the Alaska album holds second place due to the fact that my friend who turned me onto the band found a local bar with the entire album on the juke box. And i can’t ever forget how he’d show the bartender his dick everytime the sweeps would start in the begining of the title track”Alaska”. Not sure if the music was too metal for a dive bar, or the indecent exposure that got us kicked out at pretty much every visit.
my favorite between the buried and me album is the self titled. not because everyone from your gay web forum told me so, but because i met stone cold steve austin in my local walmart when i was listening to it back in 2002. he over heard it and said, “shit sounds good, what is that?” and i said it was this band between the buried and me. and he said aw yeah? and i said. hell yeah. then we sat in the parking lot for awhile and listened to it. i know this story is hard to believe. but it is true. and i’m sure everyone in the band is a huge Stone Cold Steve Austin fan. cause who isn’t? and he’s a really cool dude. i actually gave him the cd.. being a total WWF fanboy. and he said he looked forward to getting home on his tractor and jamming to it.
F. FEAR.. DRINK BEER.
The Great Misdirect. This album has proven that Colors was not just a one-off hit in progressive music, but in fact, that Between the Buried and Me have truly developed and earned a place in the progressive music scene, setting themselves apart from the rest. The only band that can create such dynamic varying music, and still make it sound natural and organic. True brilliance.
Glass Casket – We are Gathered Here Today.
I went to high school with most of them, when they were called Glass Casket. Much better band then.
That’s why everyone is calling them Glass Casket now and they’re making the millions under the name Glass Casket, right?
Waaaaait a minute…
My favorite album as of right now is Colors. Besides all the obvious reasons which would include musicianship, structure, the ability to be progressive but still encompass and pay tribute to each and every influence you’ve had; the length of Colors (64 min 9 sec) allows me to listen to the entire album twice from start to finish when I drive from Dallas (current town) to Wichita Falls (hometown and host to you on the 14th of November). I’m not talking about pulling up to the driveway as White Walls is halfway over, this is some serious driveway to driveway timing, from keyboard intro to keyboard outro. Colors makes the drive seem as though i’ve just witnessed a live show in which you played the entire Colors album from start to finish (which I did witness live). All in all, it’s the ultimate road trip mix-tape. And as with most mix-tapes, there is that one song that found it’s way onto the list and you have no idea why, not the case with Colors. Thank you for collectively putting together a masterpiece that I can call my favorite and doing it in my lifetime!
Definitely the self-titled. In this album lies the catchiest guitar licks, the most violent vocals, and the most creative drumming BTBAM has put forth. Everyone in this record knows their place, it doesn’t seem like a constant sound battle.
However, I’m a huge fan of everything they’ve done throughout the years, and they deserve every ounce of success they’ve had. In my opinion, the S/T needs to be listened to before you hear any of BTBAM’s other stuff. The natural progression of the band throughout the years is very logical– mixing the heavy with the soothing.
Oh yeah… brendanm@iastate.edu
The Silent Circus was my favorite Between The Buried And Me album. I believe The Silent Circus has the best bland of deathcore, progressive, and I guess “mathcore.” The different time signatures mixed with the song structure of very fast riffs and different timed out breakdowns is just awesome.
lawlbropher00@aim.com
My favorite Between the Buried and Me album is by far, Alaska. I first turned on the album not knowing what to expect. Turning on, hearing All Bodies, and immediately becoming absorbed by the incredible guitar work and very catchy chorus. Hearing songs like Selkies: The Endless Obsession made me cry the first time hearing it. Yes, I cried. My neck nearly fell off from headbanging to Backwards Marathon, and then later in the same song being absorbed in the soft melodies in the same song. So nice. I even went out and found the instrumental version of the album just so I could karaoke the album, and now I’ve developed quite a growl trying to emulate Tommy. I absolutely love The Great Misdirect, Colors, The Silent Circus, and the debut, but Alaska is a magnum opus, it’s the album I will have my family play at my funeral. I have seen Between the Buried and Me twice now, and I want to see them again, simply because Alaska touched me that much. Thank you Between the Buried and Me, and I will continue buying all of your releases, no matter what.
Ive though this over carefully and ive come to the conclusion that Colors is the most amazing album ive yet to listen to. White Walls is the most epic song, not only from the guitar Badassery but also the lyrical aspects. I would have to say Ants of the Sky really makes this album for me, guitars for this song still amaze me every time i listen to it. The transitions in the album are so inspiring, sparkles still come out my ass each time i auditorily ingest this piece of magic. To me this album is the best way that you can arrange fourty-four notes.
My favorite album would have to be Colors (although, The Great Misdirect is definitely getting up there) because it shows just how truly these guys are about playing and writing music! The entire epicness of Colors was a mind blowing experience from beginning to end along with the multiple genres, time signature changes, and showmanship of every instrument used/played. Colors album gives me an eargasm with shitpants and a side of wetdick every time I listen to it.
My fav has to be Alaska. I’m a huge fan of everything released (including the new one!!) but Laser Speed really does it for me. Nothing beats listening to some of the most amazing and unique metal only to be interrupted by something that sounds like a tune you’d hear in a Mexican restaurant! Getting caught up in that tune, only to be blasted by the following song really does it for me. Acoustic rollercoaster!!!
Asking us to choose one album to be a favorite just isn’t fair since there’s been so much progression and growth in musicality and style since the self-titled. Each album is amazing and perfect in its own way, and each, while drastically different from the next, captures the essence of BTBAM perfectly. However, if forced to attempt to decide upon which album is my favorite, I would have to conclude that The Silent Circus is my favorite album. I picked this CD up when I was about 13 years old, (the year it was released, 2003), and fell in love with it after the first track. This is coming from a guy who, at 13, was listening to Atreyu and other shitty bands of the like. Upon hearing Between the Buried and Me’s varied, intricate, perplexing, astonishing combination of mind-numbing progressive metal and metalcore, followed up by the soothing vocals provided in songs like (Shevanel, Take 2), and the fantastic guitar solo in Mordecai, I was at a loss for words. Speaking of Mordecai, it’s my favorite BTBAM song of all, because of how perfectly the song flows from the heavy, dark section that is the intro and verses, leading into “Living dreams, loving dreams,” the quieter, melodic part, leading into the bluesy guitar solo, which fits the song brilliantly, capped nicely with one of the most epic guitar solos in BTBAM history, and those fantastic lyrics throughout the entire song. Incidentally, I bought the self-titled before Silent Circus, and that album also had a similar effect on me, however, Silent Circus being my favorite, I decided to talk about this it instead of the self-titled. Anyway, long story short, I’ve listened to BTBAM almost every day since I was 13 years old, up til now, (I’m 20). Call me obsessed, call me a freak, call me weird, I just love BTBAM’s music, and it never gets old, and that’s why I’ve been listening to them for so long, and why they continue to be my favorite band, ever. In retrospect, it’s nearly impossible to really say which BTBAM album is actually my favorite, because I love them all so much. However, I will say this; my favorite BTBAM lineup so far is the current one. The members of this band now have helped this band reach what I think is their fullest potential to date, and will continue to expand on that potential to all new heights. Can’t wait to hear what the future holds for BTBAM’s writing and so much talent that is brought to the band by each individual member.
Choosing a favorite BTBAM album is impossible.The constant flow of creativity and ongoing progression throughout the bands career is staggering. Each album should not be overlooked by another. All are purely amazing.
My favorite Between the Buried and Me album has to be The Silent Circus. I say that because the way I found out about BTBAM is very interesting. I was in 10th grade and we were learning about art in the renaissance. We learned about this painting called ‘The death of Marat” and later that day, I was shopping in Hot Topic and I saw this shirt that had that painting on it. It was a band I have never heard of but i bought the shirt anyway to impress my teacher (she was hot) and I was obviously hoping the band would be good. I got home and immediately searched for their website and listened to the songs that they had streaming there. Instantly fell in love with them and they are now my #1 favorite band. That cd always brings back good memories listening to it. It marks the beginning of me truly appreciating amazing music/musicians such as all of the guys in Between the Buried and Me
my vote actually goes to the great misdirect, i love the flow, the different vocal styles, and the uses of synth. for the longest time, btbam was more so a band i felt i should like, than a band i actually did like. i really got into alaska and colors, but never fell in love with them. i’ll admit, i downloaded the leaked version of the album, however i loved it so much that i bought a physical copy before coming into work today.
My favorite album by BTBAM would have to be Alaska. A friend had recommended the album, so after my high school bowling match I went to Best Buy to pick up a copy. Now, at the time, I was like a lost puppy in a sea of generic, boring metal bands. I needed a music makeover, pronto. Alaska provided me that makeover, and it did one hell of a job. The heavy guitars, grooving bass, slamming drums, brutal growls and clean vocals that put Barry White to shame. Ever since that fateful winter day, I have been a diehard BTBAM fan. With Alaska, BTBAM proved to the world that we really are ‘just mortal souls, left to die’ unlike the musical gods that compose the greatest band ever, Between the Buried and Me..
It’s really hard to choose between Silent Circus and Colors. I got into them through Mordecai and Camilla Rhodes. Ah Camilla Rhodes. I take it Tommy likes Muholland Dr. But I love Silent Circus because it’s chaotic and just shows how music can be beautiful even at its darkest moments. Plus I swear to go in (Shevanel, Take 2) Tommy was channeling Aladdin. The Man Land alone though, is worth buying the CD. And I love how beautiful the middle of Ad A Dglgmut is. Now to Colors.
To sum up Colors is it being a movie. You have a beginning, middle and a end. The album takes you on a adventure into places music has never gone before. I mean on its own, sure it has, but not within a song. Some songs could be 3 different songs in one, but still each part holds familiarity to it. Plus I think we entered the town from the Nightmare Before Christmas there too. But my favorite song on Colors would have to be Prequel to the Sequel. I love Adam Fisher, and I think he brought justice to this already amazing song. The transition with the accordin? Probably my favorite part of a song in music history.
So in the end, Color wins it for me.
This is an incredibly hard decision for me. I love everything that Between the Buried and Me has done. From the unbelievable musicianship of Alaska, to the sheer brutal heaviness of Silent Circus, each BTBAM album has blown me away from start to finish. In the end though, I must go with Colors as my favorite BTBAM album. BTBAM had already pushed the boundaries of what music can be with their previous albums. And then Colors came out. Everything in this album, from the musicianship to the songwriting, is incredible. Colors has some of the most intense and heavy moments in the BTBAM catalogue (White Walls, Foam Born B). It also has some of the most beautiful (Foam Born A, Sun of Nothing, Viridian). Tommy Rogers gives his best clean vocal performance on this album. His growls aren’t too shabby either (for me, his best growled vocals are on Silent Circus). Also, in my opinion, Colors has some of the best riffs/solos/breakdowns in music. Period. I can go on for days explaining why this album is amazing (just ask my friends), but I’ll just spare the contest judges the time and leave you with this statement: Colors is 64 minutes of perfection.
I listened to The Great Misdirect for a couple of times and then decided to listen to Colors again in order to compare them. And Colors just blew me away.
my favorite BTBAM album is The SIlent Circus. At the time I was listening to lots of bullshit, and then i heard that album and it opened my eyes. love all their albums. find it hard to just listen to one song at a time.
My favorite BTBAM is definitely Colors.
The instant I heard that album was the first time in my life I felt ok being a mermaid girl. It inspired me to join Coney Island’s Sideshows by the Seashore and it was there I met my true family.
<3 Ragamonster
erin.oconnor@pearson.com
I can’t really pick a legitimate “Favorite.” Thats like asking me to choose between my children (if i had any).
But in the spirit of the contest:
I think Colors would probably be my favorite because about a month before i got it, i thought of the idea to make all the tracks on an album flow together into one song. then i listened to it for a while, noticed that there was no pause between the tracks and thought “WTF, MATE? BTBAM stole my idea”
not to mention, that album really changed the way i think about music and how i write. Plus, it’s not often you hear me listening to any polka music. So it HAS to be good.
i dont wanna leave the others out and hurt their feelings, so im gonna say something good about all of them.
The Great Misdirect: so far, i cant find a part on this album that doesnt make me envy everyone in this band.
The Anatomy Of: Its the only cover album with covers that i like better than the originals.
Alaska: it’s genius. if i ever have a daughter, i want to name her Alaska.
TSC: It’s so clever and diverse. there are heavy parts that will rock your dick off, and then there are gorgeous, serene parts that i want to make love to.
Self-titled: this album is just so raw and weird, it’s almost impossible to not like it. not to mention Aspirations is absolutely brilliant.
Not trying to be a suck up, i just feel that the others should get respect as well.
I just love colors. I can never get enough of the entire record. Everything feels like a high point.
The best BTBAM album? Definitely “The Silent Circus”. I mean, the intro to Aesthetic alone is worth the price of admission. I love how tight the album is while at the same time showing a slightly less polished version of the band. It is constantly in my ‘desert island’ stack. As a drummer, I could practice my entire life and maybe be as good as Mr. Richardson. Plus, I’m not as big a fan of the new keyboard stuff. :) I mean, I love me some Alaska and Colors, but nothing compares to the raw power of Silent Circus.
I also picked this album up right before I went to New Zealand to work on farms for 6 months. Cranking this through my ipod while shoveling llama shit out of a field has got to be the best story about this disc. Am I right?
You stole meh username!
fav BtBaM album, THE SILENT CIRCUS!! i remember when i first got it, and it hit the track Shevanel, Take 2 & my aunt was like “When Did Coldplay Release a New Album?”. . . seriously though, all your albums are amazing. . . now time to play Prequal to the Sequel on Rockband, you guys need more songs on there. . . fifty million feet of earth between the buried and me.
Colors is probably my favorite so far, I haven’t got the chance to pick up the great misdirect. I love colors above the other albums because was. The type of album that i have to listen to start to end, and everytime I hear it I’m alway brought to experience this very very epic story that plays with the songs. Almost like a Greek epic with modern day appeal. And like most great stories, this one leaves me feeling nearly every emotion possible through the various riffs, the yells, the thundering beats. I also feel like the album is a great use of all the skills you obtained in those past album, each one awesome, but colors takes it all into a one stop listening session epic poem that accient Greece would be proud of.
i loved the maturin g that came with colors but i may have to say Alaska is my favorite. i am sure to win i gotta say soemthing funny, well i am not witty but also “i ain’t no mother f*cking boyhgkjabfaivjfoi”
My favorite album is def. The Great Misdirect. Honestly I didn’t think you would be able to top Colors but then I heard “Mirrors” that ITSELF blew me away. Once I ran into Best Buy yesterday like a speed freak needing his fix then picking up The Great Misdirect something told me this was going to be it. The cover SPOKE to me..it’s just so awesome! Then I put it in my car CD player.I will tell you this now..my car CD player NEVER EVER EVER plays CD’s..it’s BROKE AS SHIT! For example when I put in a CD it says error and shoots out at me. SOMETIMES I can get through one song then it just stops BUT when I put in The Great Misdirect it went through the whole CD, no skips, no stopping, NOTHING..This CD is magic.
Driving home yup..I was in heaven.
-Chaz
sh00tzandladderz@hotmail.com
Not gonna lie, The Anatomy Of. I’ve never heard a record where a progressive metal band can pull off shit like Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Blind Melon. Very impressive.
I think Alaska is definitely my favorite, a few years back I moved from awesome San Antonio, TX, to shit ass Southern Louisiana, it was at the beginning of my freshman year of high school, so i didn’t know anyone. Well, I’m a drummer so naturally I was in marching band. One day a couple months into school, I see this weird kid in my drum class. He had a peach colored Members Only jacket on, crazy big hair and and snake skin cowboy boots on. I went over and started chatting with him; we immediately became best friends. He was a hardcore kid from California, so being from Texas we basically grew up in the same place, and were both dealing with the culture shock of Louisiana. He later introduced me to BTBAM via the newly released (at the time) Alaska. Selkies really spoke to me on so many different levels, I later started listening to The Silent Circus, and the self titled. In February of 07 my best friend died of a severe asthma attack. I had nothing left, nothing to lean on, except for the music of one amazing band that had always been a crutch for me in the past. Alaska really helped me through that time, Then when Colors was released it was really a buffer to a brighter future for me, and influenced my personality, as well as my playing. Backwards Marathon makes me cry still to this day. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me guys, even though you had no idea haha. The new album is too much to take in at one time, absolutely stunning. Great job.
COLOURS. personally i love Foam Born, is the PERFECT intro for an incredible cd! :Q__ all the tracks are very ”cum-in-pants” *-* this cd make me know you guys,first time i listen to it i was like “WHAT THE FUCK??? O_O ” fortunately there’s still people like you that can make fuckin’ Music. \m/_
Since each has gotten progressively (Get it? Progressive!) better, my favorite BTBAM album is the next one. No wait, it’s the one after that. But what about the one after that? Damn, this could go on for a while. And I hope it does.
I really think that The Great Misdirect is my favorite album of them all. I’ve been listening to each album non-stop untill this came out so i could see what changes were made musically through out the years. I’ve got to say this album fucking rocks. The catchiest song on The Great Misdirect has go to be Fossil Genera, the piano intro just gets me fucking going. I’ve listened to this album since i got it that’s almost 28 plays from start to finish. To me this album shows how you guys have evolved as a band and it showcases each instrument. Tommy’s keys have gotten way better and are all over this album and his voice is just amazing and inspiring. Dan’s bass is just a big pile of fucking greatness that inspires me to play bass better and i love his bass lines and little solos through out the album and not to mention that damn Spector, i love that bass it looks and plays so well. Paul and Dustie are simply put, AMAZING, some of the best guitarists that I’ve ever listened to and this album shows the diversity in how they can handle their PRS guitars. Last but not least Blake, his drumming on this album just made me so happy, there is such a diversity that you hardly see with any drummers these days and i just love the sounds he gets out of them. The Great Misdirect just showcases all the instruments so well and the guest vocals were really well put and such a nice little curve ball to the CD. I’ve waited for this and wanted this album more then any other album that I’ve ever wanted. When i heard it in it’s full, complete, godly, final form i couldn’t do anything but listen to it and that’s all i intend to listen to until i see you guys in concert, hopefully to perform this album in full. The drirection of this album i thought was softer then the previous albums with a bigger focus on the progressive aspect of the band, bravo you guys bravo, it really impressed me and i can’t wait to hear what you guys come out with next. This one topped Colors and every album since and i’ll be amazed when you guys go to top this one. It’s all original and it’s amazing, i love every single second of it and all the previous albums but like i said before this tops everything and just shows how you guys have grown as a band and as individual musicians. I thank you for the lovely, fan-fucking-tastic music, keep it alive and going.
The great misdirect for the win!!!!!!!!
I would probably have to say “The Great Silent Anatomy’s Misdirect To Between The Buried And Alaska Circus Colors Live”. That’s what I named the BTBAM playlist on my iPhone with all of their music arranged in a way that makes my ear pussies cum rainbows. Naturally, it ends with “The Need For Repetition” so the space between that and the hidden song “The Man Land” makes sense. Otherwise it’d just be a bunch of silence in the middle of my eargasms.
My favorite BTBAM album is the silent cricus, first, because it was the first BTBAM album i heard, and because of the song Mordecai, which the rithym sounds like a metaphore of my whole life, it goes from this really hard death metal into this soft progressive metal, this song callms me down when im angry, cheers me up when i’m down , and makes even better when im happy already.
Alaska. Bought it on a snowy night in 2005 up here in Michigan. Was my first listening of you and i HATED it at first because… if typical generic metalcore was little debbies and doughnuts and greasy pizza… BTBAM is Kashi Cereal haha
Throughout the rest of high school i idolized Tommy and I was notorious for carrying the Alaska lyric booklet around with me and citing it like a bible during times that related to the lyrics hahaha. Because of that all of my friends eventually gave BTBAM a chance and ALL ended up loving you guys for ALL different reasons but ALL of them thought Paul was an asshole because i showed them the Metal Injection interview.
“He’s a dick, he can go wank his guitar and eat his holier-than-thou vegan carrot cake.” they would say hahaha.
ANYWAYS, being a vocalist and guitarist, after 7 years of fizzled bands and projects, and not enough money for any good gear, I finally took the Ghost Train/using a lyric approach and named my band We Will Find Art Again. I hope that’s ok with yall..
Because i’m finally discovering the idea of perfect harmony.
P.S. Thank you for the best part of my life :D
sorry i forgot my email! i suck!! :( wewillfindartagain@live.com
oh and p.p.s the first time i was listening through alaska i was SO PISSED OFF because Laser Speed sounded like it was gonna be one of the most technical/roboturner-esque songs of all time and i was like yesssss and then it was lounge music!!!!!
So. If i dont win this, at least give me second place and here’s my “prize”:
Make Laser Speed Part II and make it all awesome and Laser Speedy haha?
2 more things. HEY BEEEF. some guy online says he heard “directly from you” that halloween was the last casket show but i just got a txt from adam and he said you were still planning more shows after that to support the new stuff. What the deal?
and just in case you guys are like “oh god this kid is gonna make a BTBAM ripoff band…” i wanted to show you thats not the case and let you listen to what i have so far of my first song for the project: “Oizys”
enjoy! its only like 35% done but i’m so excited.
http://www.mediafire.com/?yikzfm0y1nb
my favorite album is Alaska because that is the first one i listened too… i went to a tower records that was closing nearby my school and saw Alaska on sale for $10 because everything had to go (i also got The Anatomy Of). i had never heard of btbam before but i thought i would buy it to see what the band was about. i never looked back, im glad that tower records was closing because i was able to buy that album and be part of the btbam fan base… i think destiny brought us together!! #1 band in the world!!
Last year, I went to K-mart once, and I saw A btbam cd… I thought “no big deal.” And set it back. Then, everytime I went to K-mart, it’d be in the same place, just.. Waiting. Finally, towards the end of the year, I was like, “Y’know what? Fuck it. I’m buying this.” And I was hooked. Very awesome. I bought colors, by the way. It was like instant noodles how fast I got into you. Yayyyy~
bean_dip1300@hotmail.com
if they asked which one is the best, it’s regularly “Colors”. and the problem is: I love all of their records and I have no idea which one is absolutely my fav… -____-
oh, I think I started to be panic.
self-titled? the silent circus? alaska? colors? the great misdirect? (Colors live and The Anatomy Of not included, of course)
and, oh, the time is running out. the winner is…
Colors! sharp, clean, unique, crunchy, and insane breakdowns. no doubts. btbam is the cleanest band on stage I’ve ever seen. I always listen to “quality”, not “genre” or “popularity”. still I should say, Colors is quality and talent in madness.
My favorite album is, without a doubt, Alaska.
The straight-forward style they used on the album was very aggressive and brutal but the album shed some light melodies and singable choruses to keep it equal (like Selkies). If anything, if they were to break into the mainstream, this album could definitely be THE album for them. Colors was a pretty interesting turn for them as it did not resemble any of their past works but The Great Misdirect proves that it could become the next ‘Alaska’. It’s just as brutal and incorporates beauty in the work too. However, Alaska is my classic. Nothing can become too dull or too great on it. It just is and it’s great.
My favorite album is, without a doubt, Alaska.
The straight-forward style they used on the album was very aggressive and brutal but the album shed some light melodies and singable choruses to keep it equal (like Selkies). If anything, if they were to break into the mainstream, this album could definitely be THE album for them. Colors was a pretty interesting turn for them as it did not resemble any of their past works but The Great Misdirect proves that it could become the next ‘Alaska’. It’s just as brutal and incorporates beauty in the work too. However, Alaska is my classic. Nothing can become too dull or too great on it. It just is and it’s great.
- Jordan Cable
jordancable@gmail.com
I’m going to say that Colors is my favorite album of all time.
I’ve listened to it EVERY DAY back and forth on my 1 hour commute to school.
Every time I hear it, I instantaneously turn into a school-girl, becoming complete fanatical every time Viridian transitions into the beginning of White Walls.
My brother and one of my best friends have taken it upon ourselves to learn this album start to finish. My life will not be complete until I learn every single guitar part.
When I saw BTBAM a couple weeks ago in Philadelphia, in all seriousness cried when I heard White Walls played live. I considered it the most religious experience I’ve ever had.
This album = me.
This is such a difficult question. Which BTBAM album is my favorite? Well i guess i’d have to say alaska. The reason for this is not only because its amazing. But because its the first album of their current lineup. Blake is definently a huge influence on my drumming and the entire band in general. Their technicality is so amazing and they are such good players. Alaska just has so much transitioning and it goes from heavy to soft to weird. like in the title track it starts out with sweeps and then goes into heavy brutal grind blast beats. Its one of my favorite albums of all time. I cant stop listening to it. I’ve seen them live before and was disappointed when they didnt play the song alaska live but was cheered right back up when they played all bodies. Between the buried and me are a huge inspiration to me and i look forward to the great misdirect. I am absolutely amazed evrytime i listen to any of their music. They really know how to keep you on the edge of your seat or whatever your doing. They know how to make good music. Alaska is definently great music. I’d listen to it 100 times more. :) BTBAM are amazing. I can’t wait to see them again in november.
I vote Colors. Because I have a debilitating disorder that affects 1 in 12 American males known as red-green color deficiency AKA color-blindness. But for sixty-four minutes and twenty-one seconds, Colors lets me see the world in glorious 3-tone Kodachrome brilliance.
The colors, Duke, the colors!
I choose Colors. I haven’t heard The Great Misdirect enough times yet to decide which I like better. I’ve probably heard Colors in full (live) about a thousand times. I’m positive that I could sing that whole album (albeit out of key) a capella. In fact, my friends and I do parts of the album a capella together sometimes at random.
Also, I pushed myself to learn about 90% of Colors through the Colors songbook. I play along to the live album sometimes and it makes me feel special.
My favorite album would have to be Alaska because it was such a dramatic change in style from the previous ones. The lyrics and song structure were astounding and the title track Alaska has the most creative idea for a song which is a song about writing a song, and the sweeps and time signatures went along perfectly with the insomniac feel to the lyrics. Other tracks like Selkies, All Bodies, Audiodidact, and Backwards Marathon make this album nothing less than a modern music masterpiece.
Ahhhhh i hit publish on accident i was not done at allll. When i listened to colors straight through( i really sat there and did not move) i tried to understand how you guys were able to develop such deep ideas. You guys just fit so well together with all of your different styles, i always write songs that somehow come out like something you guys would write, im always playing your music in my head no matter what im doing, especially when im almost at climax i play the last solo in white walls to make it that much more epic. I havent been able to see you guys play because i live in long island, NY and i dont know the last time you guys played here but i would travel to the arctic to see you guys. Ive even done pieces from my art portfolio for college based on some of your songs, especially shevanel take 2, which really made me look at life in a whole new way and i learned how beatiful life is and not to take what i have for granted. Everybody is writing alor, and im not doing it just for the awesome prize, i wanna let you guys know how amazing you actually are and how well you can reach out to your fans. Thank you guys so much and when i eventually see you guys live i will give each of you a handjob… Haha i just got yelled at by my professor, fuckin love yoi guys!!
Colors. Its perfectly cohesive from beginning to end in an absolutely incredible progressive blend of Metal with Jazz, Blues, Punk, Rock, Weird Shit, and much more. Besides that it has single-handedly used up more days of my life in listening to it than any amount of studying I have done in the past 2 years, and I am always up for NOT studying in any way possible.
Alaska…definitely. Everytime I’m hanging out with friends and super high I put that album on repeat and make my friends think I’m insane because I close my eyes and play air guitar/drums/become a conductor and talk about how it is the best music ever created….ever. It’s also splendid when you’re wicked drunk. Especially Selkies. Fabulous.
i love btbam, but ima go with the latest album the misdirect, been playing boderlands while bumping misdirect,and it makes the game epic. im sure any album of thiers would, but this one inpaticular,… 6 songs, still worth buying.
Colors is simply the best album … from the magisterial intro Foam Born (a): The Backtrack that follows a change that takes you into a new musical adventure. Then appears that The Decade of Statues shows a technical breakthrough of the 5 band members, full filled of heavy and quick riffs and then it takes place Informal Gluttony wich is one of the most original tracks with a mix of music similar to the Egyptian or something like that stuff, Sun of Nothing then appears with its musical passages that makes us think that we’re spacemen aimlessly. Ants Of The Sky is the song with the sicker sweep pickings than anybody can listen (and play perfectly) to, without forgetting the coda that makes us dance like drunks to the bluegrass rythm and keep the notes coming to a perfect ending that kicks off Prequel to the Sequel which is the climax of a musical masterpiece in history and then results Viridian wich could simply be summed up in “the most melodious little harmony ever created by man” and reaches White Walls, a song with which it could not finish better the album since its inception until the epic ending accompanied by the best sweep pickings and guitar solos in history, and I still marvel by the beautiful music that can arise from the creativity of 5 men that I had the great fortune to know in my short life of 20 years. Without a doubt, this album is a masterpiece full of creativity and a perfectly mix of influences ranging from jazz, bluegrass, blues to the heaviest hardcore metal without losing harmony, is an essential album in any collection of a metalhead.
My favorite BTBAM album is by far The Silent Circus. In 2005 my friend showed me the song Mordecai. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. That song gave me goosebumps the entire time. Thats when I said goodbye to bands such as Slipknot, Disturbed and Breaking Benjamin. I bought The Silent Circus and listened to it front-to-back probably 2 times a day for quite a few months. The album is so brilliant and complex. Every song has a meaning and Between the Buried and Me puts their heart and soul into every single note played. I have heard many albums in my day, but this is not only may favorite BTBAM album but my favorite album of ALL TIME.
To me, this isn’t even about winning a contest. Any time I get the opportunity to explain publicly why this band has changed my life, it is an opportunity I seize on principle. I’ve been with this band since they released a three track sampler of Self Titled with What We Have Become, More of Myself To Kill, and Use of a Weapon. I am a musician myself and let me just say, I have never been more satisfied in my entire life than the first time I sit down and absorb ANY of BTBAM’s albums from start to finish. How does one pick a favorite album from this band? I think if it weren’t for my appreciation and love for all music BTBAM would have spoiled the hell out of me (as they more or less already have). All this being said, I’ll go with Self Titled as my personal favorite for the simple fact that it so boldly proclaimed, here is a group of musicians that will never burn out and adhere to labels and genres. Self titled sounds like the universe being born and each album that has come after is a breath of fresh air in a world full of carbon copies and fads. After I heard that album I could not wait to turn 18 so I could go out and get my first tattoo, which I wear loud and proud on my forearm as a tribute to the band that changed me as a person. I knew where they were going nearly a decade ago now, and they continue to blow my mind every year my pre-order comes in the mail. My child will listen to them in the womb one day. Seriously.
I would have to say Silent Circus cause it features the song “Aesthetic”…the very first song I ever heard from them. That song defines Between the Buried & Me for me. It’s about the gentlemen who played music on the deck of the Titanic as it was sinking and how they were willing to die doing what they enjoyed doing best….playing music. I have a feeling the fellows in Between the Buried and Me would do the exact same thing if it ever came down to that.
I actually had never heard of these guys till about two or so years ago when I saw them open for Dream theater and Opeth. Interestingly enough when these guys took the stage I instantly was drawn into them and actually saw a bit of myself in the bassists performance (being a bassist myself) playing a spector, no shoes on and moving around like he was playing funk. It was a very cool experience to say the least, and about 5 minutes into the show I was hooked. Went out the next day and bought colors and fell in love with their music instantly. I pretty much listen to that album once a week at least now. Cool shit. so yeah….colors \m/
One time I had a dream I couldn’t move. I woke up and I was sleeping between the mattress and boxspring of my bed. I forgot why I had fallen asleep in such an unusual manner until I realized that I left Colors playing on repeat. It was so brutal and amazing I had to hideaway in a cave. I couldn’t find a cave in my bedroom so I settled for sandwiching myself in the bed. Listening to Colors reminded me of getting kicked out of my chemistry class when I was in high school. I was trying to discover a new element. I still protest that the world would be a better place had I found Rubenium that day. Long story made short, I threw a bunch of potassium into a graduated cylinder of water. Well that shit blew the fuck up and would’ve caught the whole lab on fire had the ceiling tiles not been fire retardant. I went back a couple years ago and saw my old chem teacher. He said, ‘hey you’re banned for life! get outta here!!’ You see when I put Colors into my CD player I wasn’t sure what was going to happen but I knew it would be great. Well then that shit blew the fuck up and my ears haven’t been the same since, let alone my guitar playing. I try to throw in some sweep arpeggios from time to time I’m getting better but I’m still no Dustie or Paul. I swear on that day you are the ones that discovered a new element. It is definitely a metallic element but also liquid-like due to all of that smooth ass legato. A new liquid metal. I call it Between the Mercury and Me.
My favorite album would be Colors because, simply, everything. The music is outstanding. The vocals are undescribable. After going to about 10 conerts on the NE region, I finally had a chance to meet one of you (Dan) in Hartford, Connecticut (home state) at Webster. That was by far one of the most amazing moments I’ve ever had. I was purely star-struck when meeting him, I was at a loss of words xD. Ever since then, that took my “BTBAM relationship” to the next level. It’s my life-goal to now meet all of you. I win.
First of all you guys need to come to chicago soon ‘GFD’!!!!!! as Mr. Dan Briggs said in the bonus DVD of your newest master piece. lol. out of all your albums i would have to say Alaska for fucking brutal sake. Aside from you guys being brutal with all the hardcore, the difference between you and every other metal band out today. Your solos and break downs going from metal to something soft and chill in the middle of a song, then to end it with fucking epic brutalness, its light lightening striking the tip of my penis. You literally take the shape of the brutal unicorn and i Like i cant even look at you guys lol. Im not gonna sit here and kiss ass, and quote your lyrics, and make up some shit of how if gave me an out of body expierence haha, im just simply a fucking brutal fan and already cant wait for more to come from all of you guys. sooooooo with that said just make it easy and pick me and we can all mess with Blakes china and **Brutal voice** “RUUUUUUIIIIINNNED ITTTT”
dude seriously just pick me, seriously
i dont even know to begin explaning my judgement on btbam becuase the past 3 albums have just blown my mind, alaska was the first song i heard by them and i almost shit from how insane it was, when i heard colours, i would constantly listen to that album and i had to get the live dvd of it or i coudnt call myself a true btbam fan so i got it, and the great misdirect…how do u write such amazing music!! i still cant stop listenin to fossil genera the starting almost reminds me of the background music for donkey kong andthe incorporation of whistles is wicked aswell. but i’m gonna hve to go with alaska for one reason…selkies the endless obession….i have an endless obession with the song i hope to soon completly know it on guitar, check back in a decade or so and i’ll tell ya if i’ve learned it yet. BTBAM \m/
I’m going to give my vote to The Great Misdirect, honestly. Everyone blew it out of proportion and was calling it Colors 2.0 from the few minutes of sample audio BtBaM let out, but now that it’s out, everyone is blown the fuck away and complementing every aspect of the album. Of the 9 times i’ve seen them, every show has gotten better and they’ve continued to progress with every album. When I first heard them, I found a Victory Records sampler on the ground after seeing some local bands play, and I’ve been hooked ever since. As an avid hater of hardcore dancers, Between the Buried and Me has been the only band I’ve ever seen live that has thrown hardcore dancers off by not keeping a bland formula, and that totally gets my rocks off every time I see them perform. If you ask this question every time a Between the Buried and Me album comes out, I assure you I’ll answer with the latest album because I don’t see this band going downhill EVER.
I’m gonna have to go with Colors. From start to finish that album leaves me drooling, and sometimes laughing thinking about how none of them but Tommy are moving on stage playing live.
After a btbam, h the b show at the picador in iowa city a year or two ago, my friends and i went to a club and danced to michael jackson, journey, foreigner and ram jam (readers here like those bands right?) then we ate grilled cheese sandwiches purchased from a street vendor. after more bars, and grilled cheese sandwiches we caught a ride to our shitty motel in the back of a truck, in november, in iowa. at our shitty motel we broke the tv and threw up all over the bathroom, because we were pretty sure we were gonna get bedbugs…we didn’t get bedbugs, (i probably owe the housekeepers an apology) ate a horrible breakfast at perkins the next morning and drove back to kansas 5 deep in a truck that seats 3. colors is their best album.
im sorry but this band sucks they are extremely generic and boring…….. they sound exactly the same they show no growth in their music all they do is show off how bad ass they can play their insrtuments… im over that shit give me some good music not sum douchebags showing off oh look at me im so fucking badass!!!!!!! i get it your good at playing your instruments wow wee!!!!! write sum better music or progress a little bit these guys are like hatebreed in which all of their music sounds the same!!!!!
Alaska, because I’m starting a shoegazing band
I work for a San Francisco television station so my favorite BTBAM album remains Alaska (although I love them all) I cannot start a work day without listening to “Selkies, the Endless Obsession” just to hear the lyrics “Goddamn television god corrupt me, Goddamn television god corrupt me.” It puts me in the right frame of mind to corrupt the masses through television.
The Silent Circus. was most wonderful Collaboration of Brutal riffs and beautiful melodic lines. “It all makes sense, we’re capable of beauty” That defines BTBAM right there. everything you do no matter how crazy diverse it may be. it all makes sense and its all beautiful. you guys have achieved something musically that all musicians no matter what genre can appreciate.
Congratulations guys you are musical genius
Its really tough to decide theyre all soo good. I love Alaska, Im almost done learnig all the songs on guitar but the first time I ever listen to Colors I almosted cried. Ants of the Sky is the most amazing song ive ever heard and i dont understand how paul plays the first four measures, its unnaturally fast. The Silent Circus is sick too. The first song Ive ever heard was Mordecai, I used to go to sleep with the tv on and I would put the Metal music channel on. It was about 3 in the morning and I woke up about two minutes into the song and I instantly fell in love with btbam. Then theres the new album which is amazing as well, I dont understand how you guys keep making amazing records but if I have to choose I’d have to go with Colors as my favorite but that might change after I listen to The Great Misdirect a million times.
My favourite would have to be The Silent Circus as it contains my favourite and most played tracks (Lost Perfection, Camilla Rhodes, Mordecai). The album has about 4, 000 plays on my last.fm, where btbam’s discography as a whole has over 11, 000 plays.
Although I do tend to appreciate their earlier work I believe The Great Misdirect is a great record, and I’m sure will surpass 4, 000 listens soon enough.
Between the Buried and Me is and will always be my favourite band, in my eyes they can do no wrong.
I’ve been a loyal fan of BTBAM ever since they first started out. Over the years I have seen them progress so much…rather it be new members or ridiculous music. To pick a favorite, fuck man, there is no way. Every album has something that makes my knees quiver. S/T: It’s like metal tourettes…and I mean that in the best way possible. I had to stop listening to that album in my truck because it made me want to run over people…COMPLETE RAGE! 290760 POINTS! When the Silent Circus starts up, it’s like oh shit, what the fuck have they done now?! I remember how my heart would race when Coulrophobia would start up; just waiting for you guys to break me in with a face melt…right off the back. And then there was Alaska. Alaska to me was like you guys saying “FUCKING LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!” & that’s exactly what happened dudes. Backwards Marathon is by far one of my favorite songs you guys have ever made…the message made me love you guys EVEN MORE (how does that happen?!). To know there are 5 dudes out there living and struggling to do the things they love…it’s beautiful and inspirational. The Anatomy of…wow?! You guys did some amazing songs..stuff that I would have never thought you guys would have done. Great Queen cover; it made me just as happy as hearing Mr. Mercury belt out I WANT TO RIDE MY BIIIII-SICK-ULLLLLLL (that part where he gets super high). Then MOTHEREFFING COLORS. I went to the Meridian in Houston to see you guys for the Colors tour. When I heard the first track, I knew you guys were going to play the whole thing. I was in the front row, air drumming/bassing/guitaring…the whole time! I’ve seen you guys like 7 times, but that was by far my favorite show. Was about to get emotional, but I didn’t want someone to look over and go “that emo bitch is about to slice her wrist”. Seriously, I haven’t enjoyed an album like Colors since Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence by DT. I’ve loved all of you guys cd’s in their own way because they flow so well. The lyrics are amazing and insightful..and ultimately you guys are bad ass musicians. Colors was like progression beat down & I LOVED IT! Seeing you do Colors live: PRICELESS. Getting Blake’s drum stick personally handed to me: PRICELESS/I WANT TO FAINT/MOST METAL ass moment in my life. The Great Misdirect: PROGRESSION. I love the direction you guys are going with your music. Every album is progressively better; that’s why all of them are my favorite. The greatest thing about seeing your favorite band get bigger is seeing their progression as musicians. Seeing the blood, sweat and salty ass tears. Every album to me has something that pops; some bad ass distinction that makes you remember WHY that album was bad ass. I hope all of the hard work has payed off for you guys; it seems to be.
NOW COME ROCK MY FACE IN HOUSTON!
BTBAM IS LOVE!
YOUR BIGGEST FAN – JMARRS!
I would have to say colors. It’s a life changing album, it makes me wanna donate all clothes to the salvation army…
all my* clothes. Ha ha, my bad
Nah man, you can donate all clothes, including mine, cuz like I fucking said, bro, I just sit around totally naked and rock the fuck out to Alaska. Baked.
Well I like Alaska because it makes me want to donate All Bodies to science.
But yeah seriously man, like fer real. Have you, like, ever tried Baked Alaska? That’s like, what they should call the album or some shit man, totally. Baked. Cuz I get fucking high when I wanna listen to it, and it like makes me fucking feel like I belong on fucking Mars, man. And cuz Baked Alaska is like really reallyyy fucking good, bro. Like the album. Really fucking good, and totally baked. Like fucking barbecued, or broasted. Baked.
Dude I like pushed the wrong damn button and it came out “naked”. Baked kiddies. Totally fried. Baked.
But yeah I like to listen to Alaska naked too, while I’m fucking baked.
Shit dude, I’m hungry.
It’s too early to say where The Great Misdirect is going to rank so I’m going to have to go with Colors. How much do I like it? I bought it for all four of my (former) band members for Christmas ‘07, and for one of my other buddies as well. I downloaded the leak when it leaked, but then I bought six copies. To me, it’s the perfect album. Not repetitive, but not random like some more technical bands. BRUTALLY HEAVY but adventurously melodic and musical. The diverse moods (like the polka section in Prequel To The Sequel) keep the pacing just right, and the incredible musicianship is always tasteful. This album is more than an album to me. It is my all-time favorite musical recording, spoken of among me and my friends in awed tones befitting what we consider to be the supreme modern artistic achievement.
I myself am a bass player so this would be great for me. I only have a four-string, but a few guys I know are actually in a band that covers Colors and don’t have a bass-player. I’ve wanted a five-string for years, just so I could learn the Between The Buried And Me catalog. I even tried to sell my Warwick last month so I could buy a Spector (being a broke college music performance major, I can’t exactly just go buy one). I bought the Alaska book right before Colors came out, but was disappointed to see that almost none of the songs could be played on a four-string (Mordecai being the exception, which doesn’t even feature Dan, my favorite bassist, on the recording). I’m sitting here wearing my Colors shirt in my psych 101 class, ignoring it, because I’m too excited at this prospect to actually pay attention. Just bought The Great Misdirect, just heard about the tour, and now this!
I would love the state Alaska more if they made the song Alaska their national anthem
“The Anatomy Of” has to be one of the greatest musical accomplishments of all time. A Metallica song with awesome drums, I never thought I would see the day. Not to mention the fact that they covered Queen and didn’t ruin it.
Alaska wins, I think its the one where the songs are best constructed.
No offense but your basic metal riffs come in one ear and go out the other.
HAY! Like this riff!? Nope!? How bout this one? Bettar!? NOPE!? WANT MOAR!? Bllalrahahahahahagagaala
I guess it’s expected if you’re going to whip out 10 minute songs. In Alaska, those riffs are kept to a minimum. Selkies is the one that did it for me.
It’s Dream Theater meets Meshuggah meets Joe Satriani, and just looking at the time sigs in that song hurts my brain. That song defines ”All over the place”.
All in all, its the one album you can listen from one end to another and still remember what you just heard. It has a good mix of soft breaks between the rough parts. Like anyone else here I like metal but I also enjoy a break after I get my ass kicked by Backwards Marathon. That and you can hear Tommy gaps for air from time to time. It’s interesting because, playing bass in a band I get some weird riff ideas here and there. One incorporated some sort of staircase shape riff between strings. Frets 1-3,2-4,3-5. Etc. I considered it too complicated to play and I dropped the idea and I laughed when I saw the tab for backwards marathon. Fawk! They beat me to it!
Lastly, being a fan of jazz before metal, I was telling my friends how I had never heard a metal band play some jazz and how they seemed mutually exclusive. And THEN CAME Laser Speed. Oh wow.
Good job boys! Keep up the good work.
since i have to pick im gonna go with Colors. That album just has so much variety in it. no matter who i’m with they’ll always ask me “is the same band?” i mean c’mon: The Backtrack, Prequel to the Sequel, and Ants of the Sky… but my personal favorite to play is informal gluttony just because of the gong in the beginning. you guys really did a lot in that album, one second I’m just letting tears drop to Viridian, and then next you know I’m rocking out to White Walls.
another reason why i pick Colors is because you can definitely hear the bass more in the mix ;)
rcismrcrowley@yahoo.com
BTBAM is the best, because when I first heard Colors, I actually got so excited that I started getting pumped up in my room and fell over and got a concussion. It was the best concussion I’ve ever had.
Well i would have to say The Great Misdirect is my favorite. I liked this one the most judging by the size of my wang. What you do it you give a listen to an album as soon as it comes out and right after its all finished you whip it out and take a picture. Now when i finished colors it was pretty red and throbbing but this time it was purple and my balls were more blue and shaken up than the waters off the coast of Sri Lanka during tsunami season.
Colors is definitely my favorite album. After months and months of listening to it, I decided to finally tackle learning the guitar parts. FOR THE WHOLE THING!?!? Yes, for the whole thing. For the next months, the tab book was my bible, my muse… my lover. My fingers stretched farther than I ever imagined they would, my wrist strummed at the speed of a racing cheetah, my mind sweat thinking of the hundreds of different riffs and fills and melodies I was attempting to implant into my brain and output onto my hands. After months of practice, trials, and tribulations I thought it impossible. “Damn you Paul!” “Fuck you Dustie!” was all I could think. I fell to my knees, my fingers were horrible disformed shells of their former selves. But I trekked on. Finally, after one long session of guitar that played late into the night and early into the morning, I had finally done it. I had played Colors all the way through, start to finish. For one hour, I was the sixth member of Between the Buried and Me. Truly a masterpiece of progressive metal, Colors was my white whale. Once I dried all the sweat from my pruned, naked body, I climbed into bed with my woman friend. Feeling frisky and confident with my new-found finger strength, I found myself performing the most incredible finger-banging anyone on this earth had ever seen. “What’s this?” my lady and I both thought. “Has Colors made Tim a truly magnificent lover?” Why yes, yes it had. Thank you Colors, and thank you Between the Buried and Me
Lock up your daughters, lock up your wives. It’s Smiling Bob from the Enzyte commercials!
Dammit, this is hilarious.
HAHAH! Finger-banging… Awesome.
You win. Both in the bedroom and this competition.
My favorite BTBAM record is The Silent Circus cause it’s the pussiest
The Silent Circus is my favorite, cuz IMMA MAAAAAAAAANN! I ain’t no goddamn woomannnn!
God damnit you beat me to it.
Well I’ve never listened to Colors all the way through, I’ll listen to it for hours and it never ends. Maybe I should take my iPod off repeat all. But then there’s the occasional sweep makes me fall out of hypnosis and realize “Holy shit, I just came”. Then I pause it, change my pants a resume. All BTBAM albums should have a label that says “Do NOT listen to while operating heavy machinery or a motor vehicle” for the sole reason that you cannot concentrate on anything other than the triumphantly beautiful music plowing its way through the speakers. I remember seeing them in Ottawa on their Colors tour, and for a lot of the songs, nobody would mosh. Not even move, just stand there in awe of the band, hitting every note with precision. Also nobody could look away when Paul would make sweeps look easy, or when he showed everyone his tattoo. But my favorite album so far would have to be Colors, closely followed by The Great Misdirect. It’s proving to be some of their best material.
I have to say my favorite Btbam album is Colors because for me its the metal equivalent of classic rocks Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon. and even the album covers both have a similar look.
I think the best album from “The Btbams” is their new one, “Greatly Misdirected,” because it sounds great when played over top of the ESPN Sports jingle (on repeat) and a bowl of Hellog’s signature Fisted Flakes.
The Silent Circus ’cause I AIN’T NO GOD DAMN WOMAN! YEAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Disregard that, someone already said something along the lines of it.
You know, picking a ‘favorite’ BTBAM album to me is almost impossible. If I judged it based off of the most frequently played, it’d be Colors. If I judged it based off of “shock value” or what made my jaw drop when I listened to it the first time, it’d probably be The Great Misdirect. I could say the S/T or The Silent Circus for days when I want to listen to how BTBAM takes deathcore, masters it and makes it their own.
If I took that route though, I think I’d probably choose Alaska over everything else. That album has some of the best riffs I’ve ever heard in the genre. My problem with picking a favorite album though is that most of them are so diverse from each other that it’s hard to compare them, especially when you consider the latter two albums. BTBAM has come to be one of my favorite bands of all times through their constant effort in every single album. There isn’t one song I don’t like. There isn’t one song where I thought the drums could have been different, or Tommy should have hit a different note. Everything is so well done, in every riff, of every song that I’ve just come to like all of BTBAM’s albums.
What mood I’m in on a particular day is usually what dictates what music I listen to. If I’m in an energetic mood, and I want to rock out and scream, I’ll pop in their S/T or the Silent Circus. If I want to listen to more singing and melodies and complexity in song structures (as a song-writer myself), I’ll listen to Alaska. If I have an hour to just groove to awesome music, and then cry at the end of the album, Colors it is. And now, if I want to be absolutely blown away with musicianship, on top of even more kick-ass riffs and great singing, The Great Misdirect has my back.
BTBAM has something for everyone and every mood I think, and it’s just impossible to pick a favorite album. They’re all my favorite!
For me… “Colors” That may change as I listen more and more to The Great Misdirect. But Colors is my favorite because it pertains to every aspect of my. And BTBAM changed my life and How I view music. Everytime some fucking douche tells me that Metal is talentless and just pointless, I show them Colors, and show them the colors Live DVD. They shut their mouth, beacuse Colors is a beautiful, powerful, and it deserves to be the Album of the year and on top on the charts. I pray everyday that the radio would play ONE fucking song of yours, and that the oblivious people in this world could recognize your talent. Slipknot has had their run, Its your turn, its BTBAMs turn. AND I AM SURE ANYONE COMMENTING ON THIS PAGE WILL AGREE!! So we, your fans, should repay you back for what your music has done. I love everything about colors, Blake’s amazing drumming, everytime I hop on my drum set I play the intro to sun of nothing. And Tommy’s vox, everytime I hear whitewalls and when Tommy says “this is all we have, when we die” I get goosebumps!! Dan’s part in Virginian is beautiful!! Dusty, BTBAM wouldnt be the same without him, and his lil solo in Whitewalls is so perfect, and one of my favorites. And Paul has always been my favorite guitarist, I bought the colors tab book by him, and he is the one who inspired me to pick up a guitar.
So I thank you, for everything your music has done for me.
And I know I am probably not gonna win this, some guys had some beast ass comments, Like Andrew =) lol
But I really wanted to take this chance to let you guys know how fucking awesome you really are!!!!!!! Thank you!
I love all their albums but I’m gonna have to go with The Anatomy Of. Mainly because when I first listened to it I was like “This Metallica cover is better than the original…”, “…this Motley Crue cover is better than the original…”, “…wow, this Soundgarden cover is waaaay better than the original…” Uhhh, yeah you get the idea…that’s pretty much how I felt about the whole album. I was then convinced that BTBAM was the best band to come out of the 2000’s decade.
Colors:
Pretty much the best thing I ever laid my ears on. Ever. I wasn’t much of a metal/prog kid before that. But it has seriously changed my listening habits quite a bit opened the doors to tons of bands that I wouldn’t have normally listened to. BTBAM among them, of course.
Colors is like…the album that I never knew that I was searching for my entire life. It’s got fucking everything. When Colors live came out, I drove 40 miles out of my way (since I live in a little shitsplat town and all…) to go get it the day of its release. I skipped out on three hours of work today, to go get the Great Misdirect. I’m not ashamed. I’m not even sorry. Not in the least.
I still have yet to see BTBAM live, which pretty much wrecks my soul. It’s fair to say seeing Colors performed live and in person would be worth one of my kidneys, one of my ovaries, and a small section of by brain. It’s by far the most enigmatic and endearing musical journey I’ve ever taken. It means the most to me, is the closest to my heart, and fuck….you tell me what’s better than driving at a questionable speed down a twisting road between the mountains of Vermont on a summer night, blasting Colors and screaming your guts out.
I feel that I should add, by the way, that when I purchased TGM, the clerk told me that it was located in the “pop” section. I promptly dropped my elbow into his eyesocket, shattered his knees, and left him to think about what he’d done.
Colors is my favourite album. Whenever i listen to the album I have to listen to it all, I can’t not listen to it all at once. Whenever the outro for White Walls is playing, if it pauses or stops or if someone stops it, I will literally tell them off. Its funny since my mom hates metal, but she finds great musical talent within the album. Also Im learning Sun of Nothing on guitar, its a beautiful song and truly is musical genius. Im Canadian, and Canada says welcome btbam come by as often as youd like, we cant get enough!
And props on the new album, I bought it immediately!
I would have to say “The Great Misdirect.” Got it on Friday and listened all weekend non-stop and I have got to say, it is one of the most impressive things I’ve listened to in a long time. The songs reach to such ridiculous areas and styles of music, that it’s almost hard to contain laughter at times, but once you get past that, the music is so well executed and so well thought out that it’s hard to deny it for more than that initial laugh. Tommy Rogers has reached insanely new levels of frontmanship. He can sing, his scream is way more than it used to be. It’s just hard to believe this level of musicianship. It takes multiple listens for it to sink in and once it does, you find yourself singing the words, banging your head and (if you stopped controlling yourself for a moment) even holding up a lighter during the epic parts. Overall, this album is the best album in years and this group of musicians could conquer the world if they wanted to, but I’m glad that their music is made for themselves and their fans, instead of an attempt to take over the world.
SIlent Circus…. well because it makes my dick huge rather than just a tip the size of an acorn and gives me the confidence to make love to my woman. Thanks BTBAM! the best erectile dysfunction medicine of all!
neil_goochbear@hotmail.com
alaska… its the prefect length to play between my nickleback and rev theory albums
my favorite BTBAM album is alaska, because it´s awesome and i think it was the album that opened the way for colors, it is maybe the heaviest record of BTBAM and also it has the greatest song in the BTBAM catalog, wich is selkies: the fucking endless obsession!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the sweet relief is a must (8) and that fucking guitar at the end of the song……. holy freaking crap!!!!!!!
i think that god made that album.
i rememeber the first time that i listened to that album i pee all over the place because i couldn´t believe, my ears were graced with the beauty of that album, and basically that´s when i realized that BTBAM changed my life forever.
i saw them in mexico and they signed all my albums, dan briggs it´s an amaziong dude and i think that tony levin is nothing compared to him!!!!!!!
Colors:
The music speaks for itself, but the lyrics are top-notch as well:
“Sleep on…fly on.
In your mind, you can fly.
This is all we have when we die.
It’s what’s left of us when we die.
We will be remembered for this.
White wall.
I whistled for a cab and when it came near
the license plate said fresh
and had dice in the mirror
if anything i could say that this cab was rare
but i thought nah, forget it
yo home to Bel-Air!”
Also, if you rearrange the letters of “Colors” and add some new ones in and take some others out, it spells “Best BTBAM Album”. Crazy!
I have to give The Great Misdirect more time. So Colors takes the cake. I listen to this CD and i just don’t get it. Their music is so beyond me. It stretches my mind to new boundaries in more than just a musical sense. They’re the only band that i can get inspiration and motivation to do more than just play music. It’s almost like a spiritual connection with this music, which sounds weird but is what it is. I would be vastly understating this if I were to say that Colors changed my life. It’s hard to explain what that CD did to me. They’re the only band that gives me both/either butterflies and adrenaline rushes. This music is so supremely beautiful that it’s hard to put it in words. They changed the way not just that i listen to music with Colors, but the way i go through life and seek inspiration for living. All i can say is thanks.
Well I honestly have still yet to decide which album is my favorite. it really is too big of a question. Its like asking the question of existence.
but I will tell you when I first heard Colors I was having a pretty depressing day. I was down as shit. But i put the album in and just layed in bed. and i was half asleep the whole time but i was FREAKING OUT. I felt like the first song never ended, and i constantly had what i now call MUSICAL ORGASMS because every hair on my body would stand up and shivers would go down my entire body. It was like nothing other. after the album ended i sorta just layed there in disbelief. It was like listening to Backwards Marathon over and over because i was literally caught in a Time Paradox. Thanks to this album my perception of time altered me totally defenseless and vulnerable to disease…old age..and not to mention Ganondorf trying to take my triforce of Courage. THANKS BTBAM! I blame COLORS for the downfall of Hyrule.
My favorite album is Colors because I listened to it once while tripping on acid, and was compelled to strip to my boxers and lie down on my floor, whereupon I saw a giant lobster on my ceiling, singing the lyrics to me while another one played guitar.
Between the buried and me has always been that band with that unique name, a band truly making their mark on the metal scene whereas so many others are following the same fads in the genre. It was only so long until i decided to check you guys on myspace and that’s when i first heard selkies. It was absolouty the coolest and most creative song i’ve ever heard. I never imagined a song written like that. The stunning instrumental intro to the brutal vocals coming in on the verse (i don’t even know if it’s a verse. I can’t figure out the structure and that’s why it’s so fucking awesome.) To the slow part. I love slow songs once in a while and how you guys incorporate jazz is amazing cause jazz is the only thing i listen to on the radio cause the other shit is mainstream pop. Then the solo with the arpeggios. Just it was fucking awesome. So i bought Alaska and i loved it.
I decided to buy the silent cirus and your self titled afterwards. I will admit i’m not into your self titled but the silent cirus has some amazing moments like the intro to aesthetic, the slow and epic ending to mordecai and even the man land that actually had some great intrumental work with some comic relief in the vocals.
A couple months later Colors came out. And you guys just brought me into a whole new world of music. My favourite part of listening to you guys is how you figure out song structure with crazy instrumentals where it boggles my mind with questions like how are they making in this time? What the hell is the time signature? Did they just do a key change? It’s just amazing. I feel like i educate myself with your music because i’m a guitarist and when i hear the guitar work from you guys i just think to myself “how the fuck are they writing this? What chords are they using in this slow part?” So that’s when i decided to learn the album on guitar. I posted covers on youtube and it was the most challenging guitar experience i’ve ever had. But after i learnt your album on guitar i got a whole new appreciation of you guys. I love learning new chords that i’ve never played before, new ideas and just learning a 14 minute song was a fucking thrill. And you guys are just a huge step ahead from this scene. You guys are now leaving a mark on the progressive genre and my god what a huge fucking mark that is. Already getting compared to dream theater is a huge compliment to you guys.
I also take lyrics seriously in music and i must saying tommy writes some of the most clever stories and uses such awesome metaphors like the chorus to informal gluttony “feed me fear” is just fucking awesome everytime i hear it. And you guys are not lacking in one thing which is probably why i’m addicted to your music.
Your values and morals is one thing i haven’t mentioned yet and the fact that most of you are straight edge is just a huge inspiration to me. I’m a straight edge myself and it’s hard to keep this value especially when people tell me to smoke pot because it helps with song writing. I don’t think weed is the answer to get your mind thinking outside the box cause everyone can be creative you just got to think hard and actually use your brain. And this is exactly what you guys are doing so thanks for being an inspiration.
I’m listening to the great misdirect (waiting for my pre order to come in) and it’s just fucking awesome. I won’t say it’s my favourite cause i just started listening to it and it’s too early to say even though in a month it probably will be my favourite album from you guys. I just absolutly love the production of this album. There’s so many details and layers of vocals and effects that just brings this album to life. And the slow parts are so nice and such a nice change of pace. Tommy’s vocals are astounding in it.
So sorry for the long reason why i love this band. I went beyond the question was asking but to answer the question in one word. Colors. But in a month probably the great misdirect :P
Silent Circus for sure!!!!! come on The Need For Repitiion could be the only song on that album and it would still rock your effn socks off!! /dun na na naa, na ner ner ner, Dun Dun Dun/ lol that black metal riff is by far the greatest riff to ever came from a guitar,, imo
Brett (OomBrett@gmail.com)
I think Alaska and Colors collectively make the ultimate album, Im not leaving TGM out of it, but i haven’t heard it yet! I love alaska for its brutality and pure awesomeness, but also the abysmal slow parts. I love colors for the intensity of the composition, i can hardly listen to one song without having to listen to the whole album. they are gods to me.
Colors, because I’m an equal opportunity listener. I also like listening to barfights.
My favorite album would most definitely have to be Colors. Yes, Alaska is probably one of the greatest albums of all time but Colors is basically Alaska on some strange concoction of anabolic steroids and horse tranquilizers (mainly because when you listen to Colors, time seems to slow down due to the fact that for 64 minutes you’re digesting note after note). I remember being just genuinely stoked for this album’s release. I came home everyday and immediately jumped on the “Colors Interpretation” site to look at all the new submissions, and even submitted an audio clip for “Sun Of Nothing”. Colors is like the majority of the candy made in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory: You know that after you digest it, you’ll never be the same again. And I honestly would not of gave a damn if Colors had turned me into a giant,pulsating blueberry, drowned me in a chocolate river, had me dropped down an egg chute, or shrunken me to the size of thimble. My favorite track would easily be Sun Of Nothing, even though it’s hard to pick a favorite due to the fact that each track stands out further than the other. Colors kicks testicles and prevents future childbirth. There’s a reason BTBAM puts Kurt Russell on all their studio video’s: A long time ago Kurt Russell was approached by Tommy & Paul of A Prayer For Cleansing and they were like: Kurtbro!!!! In a few years, Chuck Norris is going to spawn about a million jokes regarding how he roundhouse kicks reality on a daily basis!!! He’s going to be made into a demigod after the fall of Walker, Texas Ranger!!! He’s going to need a rival. That rival has to be you!!!” So Kurt Russell, being the extreme badass that he is, agreed. This is only the beginning of the BTBAM/Kurt Russell era. Pretty soon he’ll be doing guest vocals on future albums, merch will be designed with his devastating,menacing glare on it, BTBAM might even get a movie deal out of all this. How does this tie into Colors being my favorite album by BTBAM you might ask? Well in 1983, following the release of The Thing, Kurt Russell sneezed a glob of multicolored snot, but luckily it was recorded. In 2007, Kurt Russell discovered BTBAM were the only capable musicians that could replicate this sneeze. So they slowed the sneeze down to an audible level and discovered that it spanned 64 minutes. BTBAM then transposed it to their respective instruments. The rest is history.
The Great Misdirect definitely. When i heard it, i wanted to rip my ears off and subsequently tape them to the album so we would never be parted. I’m not sure how much more I can listen to it for my testicles might disappear from ejaculating from every note, chord, and rhythm played. Also if i win, can you throw in an ice pack for my testicles? Autographed by BTBAM so maybe through the transitive property they will be healing them.
PS.
I give BTBAM all the mad gangster metal ass bullshit props for this album because it has every type of listenable music included in it and it has 6 tracks, and is 59:34. Anyone who can put out that shit is like Seaking
Colors is my favorite album, because Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater said it was the best album of the year, and Mike Portnoy is god, so it totally makes sense.
My favorite album is definitely Colors because it is the longest song i have ever been able to sit through in my life. It takes a musical adventure through every thought the mind can comprehend. Every time i finish the album i feel like i have achieved more than if i were to be the first man on the mars. The live DVD was also filmed about 20 minutes from my house and i have played on the same stage that it takes place on, however i was not able to be at the DVD shoot for the fact of retarded parents. It was for the better though, because if i were to experience colors in its entirety live i would have so many continuous orgasms that i would never be able to have children and would run out of sperm and would start spewing chunks of myself out of my penis
Pretty much couldnt get through any of them, but i think i got close to finishing Colors more than the others, mainly because it sucked less than the other albums. Not quite sure how much the great misdirect will suck but im betting i wont be able to finish it because really i just dont understand it, this progressive genre is just noise to me, mainly because i play bass and i think its the easiest thing to make it look like you know what the fuck your doing. But really now my favorite album has to be Colors because of how well its put together and how the entire album is one song and everything flows together, its amazing. I can one day hope to create something that amazing.
It’s Difficult, but I have to say that Alaska is my favourite. ‘Backwards Marathon’ is always a good song to listen to on a half an hour bus ride surrounded by ‘Disease, Injury, Madness’ and inbred . Since I live in Britain, and its always raining, the “It’s raining” section just reminds me how it is in fact always raining. I can’t remember the last time the ‘Sun of Nothing’ shine down on me. My bus ride always gets me thinking about how much I lack ‘Aspiration’. half way home we get towards a corner in the road that the bus driver always goes round at ‘Laser Speed’, it makes my head feel like a ‘Medicine Wheel’. Entering the village a few miles from mine, the bus pulls up at a bus stop. I never really understood why the bus stops are painted such unusual colours, a blue roof and ‘White Walls’?
There was an unusual amount of traffic here for a little village. Stopping here gave me enough time to glance around at this strange neighbourhood which I’ve never really paid much attention to. I saw police men taking down a hooded teenager. They needed the ‘Use of a Weapon’ to take him down. As I looked further down the street through the bus widow, I could see a house on fire. ‘Breath In, Breath Out’ a fireman repeated to a shocked victim of the fire. The teenager must have been an ‘Arsonist’ who had created a ‘Fire for a Dry Mouth’ thrill. It makes me think ‘What we have Become’ as a race. The ‘Reaction’ from the other passengers on the bus was weird. After the traffic, we turned left onto my street, ‘Camilla Rhodes’, A strange name for a street, but nevertheless. I walked into my home, and run up to my room. ‘Naked by the Computer’, I start playing Pokemon on the PC. I’m only at the part where you travel through ‘Viridian’ Forest where it takes about 20 minutes to kill a damn Metapod. I came across this trainer, and he’d named his Weedle ‘Flip’. My Pikachu was called Shevanel. It only knew two moves, flash and cut. Quickly before he killed my Pikachu, I shouted ‘Shevanel, Cut a Flip’! He used his cut move and knocked him clean out.
In my opinion, i’d say The Silent Circus. This was the bands turning point in my opinion. I believe people really stared to realized how talented the band really was, and not just on a hardcore front, but also musically. From the start of the album with Dusty, (well i’m basing this off the live dvd, but it was Nick at the time) coming in with the tremelo part and then pow, it just kicks you straight in the nads, but in a friendly way. That whole album still blows my mind everytime I listen to it. Mordecai is a masterpiece in itself and the way it fades into Shevanl Take 2 is genius. Then the secret track is fucking great too. In all, it really shows the time and dedication each member has put into their instrumets. Who ever thought some good ole’ North Carolina boys could achieve so much.
Alaska definitely has to be my favorite. To keep everything short and sweet about why I just adore this album, I’d just have to say it’s like a story of my life… If my life was full of screaming and pants-wetting awesomeness.
It’s Difficult, but I have to say that Alaska is my favourite. ‘Backwards Marathon’ is always a good song to listen to on a half an hour bus ride surrounded by ‘Disease, Injury, Madness’ and inbred . Since I live in Britain, and its always raining, the “It’s raining” section just reminds me how it is in fact always raining. I can’t remember the last time the ‘Sun of Nothing’ shine down on me. My bus ride always gets me thinking about how much I lack ‘Aspiration’. half way home we get towards a corner in the road that the bus driver always goes round at ‘Laser Speed’, it makes my head feel like a ‘Medicine Wheel’. Entering the village a few miles from mine, the bus pulls up at a bus stop. I never really understood why the bus stops are painted such unusual colours, a blue roof and ‘White Walls’?
There was an unusual amount of traffic here for a little village. Stopping here gave me enough time to glance around at this strange neighbourhood which I’ve never really paid much attention to. I saw police men taking down a hooded teenager. They needed the ‘Use of a Weapon’ to take him down. As I looked further down the street through the bus widow, I could see a house on fire. ‘Breath In, Breath Out’ a fireman repeated to a shocked victim of the fire. The teenager must have been an ‘Arsonist’ who had created a ‘Fire for a Dry Mouth’ thrill. It makes me think ‘What we have Become’ as a race. The ‘Reaction’ from the other passengers on the bus was weird. After the traffic, we turned left onto my street, ‘Camilla Rhodes’, A strange name for a street, but nevertheless. I walked into my home, and run up to my room. ‘Naked by the Computer’, I start playing Pokemon on the PC. I’m only at the part where you travel through ‘Viridian’ Forest where it takes about 20 minutes to kill a damn Metapod. I came across this trainer, and he’d named his Weedle ‘Flip’. My Pikachu was called Shevanel. It only knew two moves, flash and cut. Quickly before he killed my Pikachu, I shouted ‘Shevanel, Cut a Flip’! He used his cut move and knocked him clean out.
COLORS will always be my favorite, but i bought tgm day one and its amazing Fossil Genera is my favorite song! BTBAM is my favorite band of all time but someone witha stupid witty comment will probably win
I’m gonna have to say my favorite is Alaska. It’s the first album I ever listened to by them. There isn’t a single bad song on there, but most of their albums are like that. All Bodies is such a perfect song to open with. It’s like the perfect combination of intensity and melody. Laser Speed is about chill as fuck and a great way to end the album. The shift from the clean interlude to the main riff in Backwards Marathon is just fucking amazing. In my opinion that song best represents Tommy’s amazing vocal skills. Songs like Roboturner and Croakies are just a straight up grind mindfuck. You got to love those chill ass interludes in between songs like Medicine Wheel and Breathe In, Breathe Out too. I don’t even need to go into how amazing the Selkies solo is because anyone who likes this band knows about that already. I think this album does a really good job of representing what this band is all about. They create so many different sounds throughout this album, but they all sound original at the same time. Overall, this album is a fucking masterpiece.
My favorite album is “The Anatomy Of”. I have never heard a better cover album. Every single song on that album does every original band that wrote it justice. One problem i have with cover songs is that some artists have a difficult time finding a balance between making the song their own while still keeping the classic sound of the original, and in this category you guys were spot on. The parts you did change I thought were better, and the rest sounded pretty much exactly the way was meant to be played. And all the songs you covered are legendary, and i used to listen to them when i was a lot younger, and since the release of The Anatomy Of i have been able to listen to my favorite songs when i was growing up, but with a kickass modern twist.
You guys are everything i aspire to be as a musician. Keep writing music. You inspire me to do great things and to write great music.
Alaska because its the one that forged my thoughts about BTBAM being my favourite band of all times. You can’t deal with talented and i mean really talented musicians. In an era of mediocrity BTBAM are just above any of us all!
bigcmgmt@live.fr
My favorite album to date is, without a doubt, Colors. I always enjoyed your music, but when I first heard Alaska, I really became a fan. I remember eagerly awaiting a leaked version of Colors since I first saw that it was done being recorded. From then on I checked once or twice daily for it, I somehow knew that I would be blown away. Then one glorious evening, I arrived home to find that the wait was over and I downloaded a leaked version (I have since bought the album, merch, and seen you twice) and sat down to listen.
Now for a bit of back-story. The album released around the time of my 18th birthday. I wasn’t doing anything with my life really, just sort of wasting away. I’ve always been a thinking man, with an interest in philosophy and similar subjects. Around this time, I had been having what some may call “peak experiences” at random points in my life. I could never put to words exactly what that means, but they were, essentially, moments of sheer epiphany where I felt like I was tapping into the true nature of myself, everyone else, and the universe. They would start suddenly, I’d glance over at a random object and I would see that object in this manner. This affected me in very positive ways, I was overtaken with a newfound sense of empathy. I found beauty in all people, objects, events, etc. and it made me very happy and content in my life.
So that night when I first heard Colors, I had exactly 1 hour 4 minutes 9 seconds of jaw-dropping universal oneness. Foam Born (a) brought me to a state of transcendence much like I had experienced randomly as I described, but when (b) came on I found that I could sustain the feeling, which I had been unable to do previously. This feeling lasted throughout the album as I broke down the music, song titles, and what I could discern from the lyrics into my own personal concept of the album which is similar to what I had read, later on, was the actual meaning. I realized the life-cycle concept and ran with that and throughout each song, I found myself empathizing strongly with the each stage. During Sun of Nothing, I realized that this was the point I was at in my life, I shed a single tear and listened to the haunting lyrics and wall of sound, and life suddenly became very clear to me. How you arranged and delivered the album, struck me in a way which made me realize the universal struggles, stages, and beauty that is in the life of every person.
Since that night, my life, for better or worse, has been given a much different perspective on the world and my place in it. I don’t worry so much, and I strive to see the good in people as well as myself. I’ve felt more focused and creative, and articulated myself through examining others so deeply. Now, I know myself well-enough to do or be whatever I wish, I no longer understand the term “can’t.” The world is simple, simple and amazing.
I see Colors, like many see the bible. It was the key to unlocking my personal salvation. Anytime I converse with someone about music, and they don’t particularly enjoy metal, I will nag them incessantly to open themselves up, and listen to the album, as it’s the best example of progressive, intelligent, and meaningful music I’ve ever heard, at least in my opinion. I actually listened to “Prequel to the Sequel” on my way home from work today. This contest was a good excuse for me to write this, as I’d often wished to thank you all for creating an album that has been so essential to my life.
So, in closing, “…the waves have pushed me to where I need to be. Sunlight drenched on my skin…”
The Great Misdirect, because instead of the pre-ordered copy arriving in my mailbox on the 27th, it arrived on the 25th. WHAT A GREAT MISDIRECT!
The Silent Circus is my favorite BTBAM album because it was the first album heavier than Slipknot that I ever heard. I remember going to summer camp and meeting my bunkmate who was a big fan of hardcore and metal at the time. Back then I was just barely competent when it came to metal knowledge and still believed that Master of Puppets was the greatest album of all time. My bunkmate then proceeded to show me The Silent Circus, which can firmly say changed my life. The intense grinding, violent sound of that record didn’t seem like it could possibly be made by humans playing instruments. I felt like I was being fed through the gears of some massive metal machine. But at the same time the band seemed to have a sense of humor about what they were doing (the handclaps in the first track give that away). By the time I got to Mordecai I thought I wouldn’t leave this album alive, and then the clean vocal bit came in. Of course these days doing clean breaks in otherwise brutal metal songs is a done-to-death cliche, but back then it made my stomach flip over. I was young and music was still something way bigger than just instruments and notes. Songs still felt like whole worlds to be explored, and albums were entire universes of sound, completely separate from the real world. The fact that BTBAM could go from skull crushing brutality to heartbreaking beauty at the drop of a hat didn’t even seem physically possible to me at the time. Add in the fact that they could then jump right back into the violence with Ad A Dglgmut (one of my favorite songs of all time), and I was in love.
Later that year I went to my first concert. It was a Converge, Cave In, and BTBAM show at the Knitting Factory. By this point I knew the Silent Circus front to back but seeing them play live took it to the next level. First of all I had no idea how loud things were going to be, and to see these normal looking dudes tear it up on stage was both exciting and frightening. I immediately understood why people thought that metal was the music of the devil, because it really is some powerful stuff. I was one of the only people in the crowd at the time, and I could have easily went up to the band and talked to them, but I was 14 and too chickenshit to even get close to the stage.
Years later I’ve had multiple conversations with the members of BTBAM and they are some of the coolest people I have ever met. I’ve been to countless shows, listened to more metal records than I can remember, and have even written plenty of metal songs for my own bands. I can safely say that NONE of that would have happened without The Silent Circus. And that is why The Silent Circus is my favorite BTBAM album.
truthsxe@gmail.com
Colors, because you designated the color Purple for the song White Walls
The Great Misdirect, mainly because the melodies on this album are a lot easier to fap to.
I chose The Anatomy Of as it shows off BTBAM’s song writing skills off the best. I dunno what was going through the minds during the writing process but they really raised their game from the previous albums. Which were cliche’d post-hardcore at best.
I understand that the album was conceived before the band quit heroin and meat, which shows. Since TAO their albums have become way too vegan-esq.
Another reason why I chose TAO is because nobody else has, and I know how much metalsucks like’s shitty metal so they will probably agree with my choice and award me the bass so I can join a BTBAM cover band.
Colors because i have white walls tires
Well in my opinion The Great Misdirect is not only their best album, BUT is the the single greatest piece of art ever written. Since I got it (two days ago I got it from a pre-order) I have not been able to listen to anything else besides it. I enjoy both the melodic off beat tempo of Mirrors and the high intensity of Disease, Injury, Madness. My favorite song off the album without a doubt is Swim to the Moon it has everything in a song that I want, beautiful guitar licks, slow melodic parts, a fucking drum solo.
All around an amazing album but pretty much all of their albums have been amazing so I am in fact looking forward to seeing how they can top it
WHAT HAS THIS WORLD COME TO!?!? When a metal band can get away with putting a hoedown in a song and make it so freaking EPIC like BtBaM do, that’s just crazy insane. With that being said, Colors isn’t my favorite album. I’d have to go with The Silent Circus simply because Mordecai has hands down the best solo at the end ever! In fact the entire song absolutely blew my mind the first time I heard it way back then and it still remains my favorite song from the musical genius’s that the gods have bestowed onto Earth. I love how it starts out fast and gets slower then picks it up again and finishes on with me in a state of ecstasy. Every time I listen to Mordecai I need to stop what I’m doing in fear of hurting myself and others around me because I always feel the sudden urge to rock out and I get the most intense EARGASM ever. I can’t wait for The Great Misdirect to grow on me. I just picked it up this morning after listening to Colors 2 times through waiting for Best Buy to open then popped TGM into my car stereo and turned it up all the way. BtBaM have come such a long way sing S/T and I can’t wait to see what else they come out with in years to come. Way to go guys on breaking new grounds and being the leaders in metal today
The Anatomy Of.. because dude, writing your own songs is hard
Colors… because as a tiny girl its easy for me to sing along with “LA LA LA LA…. LA LA LA…”
The Great Misdirect is Definitely THE greatest album ever. It’s got the most Brutal breakdown at the end, the ending is not your ordinary slow, epic fade off and all the songs are just amazing. Mirrors is the best intro to an album yet, Obfuscation has an awesome solo, Disease Injury Madness has too many words to describe how awesome it is, Fossil Genera – A Feed From Cloud Mountain has the greatest lyrics ever, Desert of Song has an awesome story in itself, and Swim to the Moon makes me jizz my pants every time i listen to it. THIS IS WHAT WE CALL A BRAIN.
Wpelepchan@msn.com
Choosing my favorite Between the Buried and Me cd, is like a parent having to choose who their favorite son or daughter is. Do they pick the one who scores the most goals at the soccer game, or do they pick the one who scores the higher grades on their report card? OH THE DESCISIONS! Each BTBAM cd is special to me in their own special way. My favorite BTBAM album is The Great Misdirect. While it may not score as many goals per week as Colors, The Great Misdirect represents the accumulation of all of BTBAM’s past triumphs in music. Combining the raw intensity of The Silent Circus and Alaska with the emotion and ingenious musicality and epic scale of Colors, The Great Misdirect represents this band at the top of its game. The Great Misdirect is structurally their best work. Songs actually flow coherently from one idea to the next, which was missing from Colors. You still get the cool wacky moments that made Colors so fun to listen to. Only now, these wacky moments are actually relevant to the song and not just “oh lets put a country hoedown / bar fight here, or lets sing like babies here (la la la la….la la la…)” Im not saying these parts were bad, they just seemed a little out of place. Also, each song on The Great Misdirect is intricately layered. And they do this in a way thats not distracting, but where you can still hear each part clearly. This is another testament to how well BTBAM crafts each song. In addition to better song writing the whole album sounds better mixed. To me, up until The Great Misdirect, each cd sounded like it was rushed through the mixing process. Alaska had its obvious problems in the guitar tones and even Colors sounded like the whole cd was muffled, almost like I was listening to it on a record player. My doctor tells me Im going deaf, but Colors doesn’t sound as crisp like The Great Misdirect. The Great Misdirect addressed all of these problems and actually sounds like a polished record fit for the kings that are Between the Buried and Me.
The Great Misdirect is unforgivably heavy and unbelievably beautiful at the same time. Almost like a marble statue of Venus playing metal.
thats very hard to decide which album is the best.’The silent circuit’ was the first one I’ve bought and it blew me away. On Alaska are some of my favourite songs but, the best album is your new one. Really its one of the best album is ‘the great misdirekt’.The beginning is awesome and you just have to hear it in a row.It grabs you and troughts u around your room untill its finished…..and you are just sitting on a chair and are smiling because it was a friework in your ears that left a impression of joy in your mind.
The beginning of ’swim to the moon’ I never heard a such cool intro from any other band.Furthermore the great instrumental part from around 10mins .I heard it and i was like ‘fuck yeah! this is the shit!’.The transitions ofthe different parts are so neat and smart fitting that it never disturbs the ‘flow’ of the album.
Even now thinking of the record, I can’t stop smiling.Your records are getting better and better.Keep it up boys
-Mathew
OOOH shit I almost forgot!!!!!!
My momma always said, “‘the great misdirect’ was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” ……But what you get is the best shit on earth ,heaven , hell and the univers.
Favoirte album has to be The Silent Circus because Mordecai is on it. I’ve listened to Mordecai so many times in a row that I literally needed to change my pants. I’m also a huge fan of the self-titled album, Alaska, The Anatomy of, Colors and the Great Misdirect. Oh, wait.. Isn’t that EVERY ALBUM?!?
First let me clarify that I love every album by the band. Each one is unique and that’s what I love about them. Anyway, my favorite album by Between the Buried and Me thus far has been Alaska, partly because it was the first album I heard by the band. I had never heard anything that sounded as beautiful yet brutal and technical as Alaska did at the time. There were no other bands like BTBAM around fusing metal, grind, prog, and death with black metal interludes and Queen-esque choruses. Everything about Alaska flowed well and sounded great. The intro riff to All Bodies starts the album off in the midst of chaos and then it segues into one of BTBAM’s finest moments, “Keeper of the stars, I hope to never find, We are just mortal souls, left to die.” At this point I was sold on the band. I listened to Alaska over and over for months. Nothing else really “did” it for me, musically speaking. It changed the way I listened to, perceived, and composed music. Songs like Backwards Marathon and Autodidact groove like no other. (As a guitar player, the riffs are just so fucking fun to play, too) I never fail to get goosebumps when Tommy screams “IT’S RAINNNNINGGG” during Backwards Marathon, and that’s why it is my favorite song ever. Nobody does stuff like that in metal. Alaska is just epic, brutal, and beautiful all at the same time.
If this had been asked before tgm it would have been colors for the amazing musicionship involved in creating such a masterpiece but as of the 26th im not so sure. The new album has everything that makes btbam classic and also the newer fresh and multi-directional progressive side that they have moulded and incorperated to create a beast of a band. I searched the forums for a leak of the album months in advance and was immensly excited (being from the UK, that is a tall order). I then previewd the album the next night with a fellow metal head, and it was the most satisfying hour that i can remember having (closely matched to colors). Anywho i bought the album on the 26th, dvd is fucking killah! Some truely inspirational parts on the new album, mainly; the whole thing, a larger focus on calm and prog elements!!!, epicness of the tracks, PW solo in obfuscation, HEAVY BROOTAL D/I/M, Horse neigh before epic rock riff/solo (thanks dustie!!!), Desert’s chilled-ness, and finally the most fucking brutal/calm/epic Swim!
Thanks guys for making some fucking great music
BTBAM FTW!!!
Welcome to… ALASKAAA!!! Definitely my favorite BTBAM album. I’ve been a fan since a friend gave me the demo for the self titled album, but I feel BTBAM really came into their own with Alaska. From start to finish, this album blows me away. The first track begins with a crushing riff, with groove that is unmatched in the metal genre. This sets the precedent for the entire album. From the heavy grooves of the first three tracks, to the epic classic, Selkies, the soothing “Breathe in, Breathe out”, and the BEST SONG OF ALL TIME, Backwards marathon, the beautiflul instrumental, Medicine Wheel, the Amazing Primer and Autodidact, to the perfect ending to an album, the fun, happy palette cleanser, Laser speed. When I first bought the album, I listened to it 1000 times straight. It never left my car cd player for 4 months. FOUR MONTHS!! And that is not an exaggeration. When I heard that BTBAM would have a new lineup for this album, I was a little upset. But when I heard the cd, I knew it was the best band lineup in history. Tommy’s vocals are unmatched, anywhere. Blake is probably the best drummer on earth. Paul and Dusty compliment each other so well, you’d swear they were brothers. And then there’s Dan, my biggest influence, on bass. I have analyzed every part Dan has written for BTBAM, and it is all beyond amazing. This album sincerely changed my life. I didn’t even need to type that long explanation, as the album can be summarized in two words: MUSICAL PERFECTION.
mesacamfinn@yahoo.com
It is gawdamn impossible for me to choose a favorite because I have been hooked ever since I heard adadglgmut some 4 or 5 years ago. Basically I learned to play drums by copying all the drum beats from early “RA” “Sparta” and “at the drive in”. A couple months later I got a double bass pedal and learned how to use it by listening to Alaska!
On top of that I bought final fantasy 11 and world of Warcraft back in the day at the same time just so I could save the character name of mordecai. The best I could get was mordeci and that is still the name I use on all my online gaming.
On top of that, October 16th 2007 me and a friend flew down to San Diego and
hiked 4 hours to get to the venue btbam was playing at at the time. We got there 3 hours early and decided to chill and check out the area and ended up running into Paul, Tommy, and dustie talking in the back of the venue. They were totally respectful and we all just chilled and talked for like 15 minutes!
Basically besides the fact that the only band shirts I own are btbam shirts, they really have accompanied me through every big moment of my life including my father’s cancer.
Btbam for Eva in my book!! <3
Sorry that last comment was harsh i forgot every other record!! How could you do a contest with best album??i guess 95% of people on here believe that every album is sick. Anyways guys if u do read this seriously get over to the UK for a headline tour man! Get off victory cus they ent doing ya no favours you need to get abroad man bring this shit over here!!!!
Colours by far is the greatest album ever, its like an orgasm for my ears. The harmonics, breakdowns and melodies are just to die for. I listen to this album every day, and would happily do so every dayover and over again. i think i would literally like to fuck listening to this that would be legendary.
So I was driving really fast when the cop pulled me over. He asked me to give a good excuse for speeding. I told him that I saw floating kookaburra’s like in the song all over the road and that I was trying to speed up so I didn’t hit a large population of them. He didn’t buy it, so he still gave me the speeding ticket, only after he noticed that I was listening to btbam, and I told him go get this cd, because it will make you see kookaburra’s as well. I don’t know if the cop took my advice, but hopefully he did because colors is amazing, and so are floating kookaburra’s.
The Silent Circus
I’m honestly getting a little disappointed in the direction some of the newer material is going. It’s still good, but honestly simplicity and subtlety worked really well for BTBAM in the past. This album was primarily straight forward and balls to the wall. The riffs crushed and the breakdowns were in good taste. And when it happened to change it up (jazzy end to Mordecai) it was a pleasant surprise and break from the album. Whereas lately you get that not as pleasant surprise every few minutes. And while Colors tried to be one long song, The Silent Circus easily surpassed it in fluidity. And not to mention it took them until the newest record, The Great Misdirect, to put in another slow clean vocal song. This is something that has been missing(outside of the cover album) in both Alaska and Colors(I don’t count Viridian or Laser Speed, because they are both instrumental). Not to mention there is a Mulholland Drive reference on the album and who can forget the god tier secret “I’m a man” song. The Silent Circus is the best BTBAM album,because it’s a perfect album, simple.
Alaska, because of Backwards Marathon thats why.
Colors. Have you heard the intro to “Prequel To The Sequel”???
The Great Misdirect is my favorite. I’ve already listened to it multiple times and its come out right to the top of my list. Its the perfect mix of DUN DUN WREET WREET’s, and La la la’s! Listening to it gives me that warm happy feeling in my belly like watching puppies romp around.
Also holy shit Dan’s playing is erotic and hes my biggest idol as a fellow bassist. <3
Alaska for two reasons:
1) the lyrics to Croakies and Boatshoes are fucking hysterical
and…
2) it rocks the most.
P.S. – I think they tried a bit too hard with The Great Misdirect.
Colors, because White Walls makes me ejaculate all over the walls.
My favorite album BTBAM album is Colors. I regret to say I am not a long time BTBAM fan. In fact, I I was not even a metal fan until recently. I was introduced to BTBAM through a few of my friends who were, in fact, die hard BTBAM fans. I am a percussionist and upright bassist. The majority of music I listened to before BTBAM was by Beethoven and Stephen Sondheim. Beethoven’s emotional expression (especially in his piano sonatas) are, to me, unparalleled. Sondheim’s compositional AND lyrical style is extremely intellectual and artistically beautiful. Each of them are truly music craftsmen and at the top of my list.
The reason I refer to each of these musicians is not to compare. Between the Buried and Me play an extremely adverse style compared to both Beethoven and Sondheim. The reason that BTBAM deserves the same recognition as these 2 composers is on a much more personal level.
I began listening to colors about 5 months ago, which happened to be a difficult time for me. The relationship I was in fell apart in a very hard way and the outlets I used for letting out my feelings became more unhealthy. BTBAM grabbed my attention when I was first introduced. I remember being in complete awe of the Foam Born: Decade of Statues breakdown. It was the first time I’d ever heard musicality I could really appreciate in Metal music. I went to my first concert earlier this month at the Trocadero in Philly and got to see them live. It meant so much more than I imagined it would to see the people who made COLORS play that music right in front of me. My appreciation for their music has opened the Metal door for me and has allowed me to appreciate a lot of artists that inspired them. I’m currently in the process of analyzing the entire Colors album, now that both the Guitar and Bass books are available.
My reasons for enjoying Colors the most is not really because of comparing it to every other album by BTBAM but because it reached me at the perfect time. This is what sets it apart for me. It was the first time that I felt like a piece of music was reaching out to me, as if it knew that it’s sound was what I needed. I thank Between the Buried and Me for letting Colors be my outlet and letting it help me when I needed it.
Seperately, I want to state that I think that The Great Misdirect is an awesome addition to your collection of music and I hope you guys come out with Guitar and Bass books for this album as well. Keep making music!
My e-mail: maddawik@yahoo.com
My favorite album is the first self titled album. When I first heard it, I was captured by how progressive and original it was. I remember when I would slip the disc in my truck, it would get my blood flowing and make me drive just that much faster. I probably have every little part of that album memorized (as I do all BTBAM). So sure Colors, Alaska, and Silent Circus are more technical and refined, but the self-titled will always be the most special to me because of how progressive and just SICK it was for its time. BTBAM thank you for existing!
The Silent Circus has to be my all time favorite.
i was the first album of theres i bought and just loved listening to it.
then id play it when id practice driving with my mom and have it full blast and she’d get pissed cause id sit there screaming the lyrics at her and then one day she just smacked me across the face for it and i laughed the whole way home.
devo3815@yahoo.com
Although I do believe The Great Misdirect is the best thus far, my favorite cd is Alaska. It is the first cd with the current line-up and that is what shaped Between the Buried and Me for perfection.
gmikey222@myspace.com
I would have to say my favorite album is the new one, The Great Misdirect. I like it because every single song I can relate to. The first song “Mirrors” is about a mirror that can talk, and I used to love that movie Sleeping Beauty with the talking mirror. It used to make me want a mirror to talk to since I don’t have any friends to talk to. :(
Obfuscation is next and man I love this song. I didn’t know what the word obfuscation meant at first, so I looked it up and it meant to hide the meaning behind words, and I’m always doing that to my little bro. The other day, he was having an asthma attack and he was all like “WHERE MY HALER?!?!?” and I was like “Dude, where IS your inhaler?”. It was pretty funny, and he totally didn’t catch on to my OBFUSCATION. LOL
Disease, Injury, Madness seems to be about brainwashing and cults, which is pretty legit cause I almost joined a cult once. True story, I went to a couple of meetings and got some cool looking white robes and hoods, but they kept on talking about burning shit and the power of the whites, so I ditched that popsicle stand. Seemed kinda fishy to me, I mean I liked the BTBAM album “Colors” so I couldn’t just believe in the power of one COLOR, AMIRITE?
Fossil Genera is probably my favorite song because at first I thought it was going to be about dinosaurs, and my favorite movie of all time is Jurassic Park 3. That movie is awesome, but when I heard the lyrics it seemed like Tommy was writing about ALIENS AND DESTRUCTION, and Independence Day is my 2nd favorite movie, so I LOVE THIS DAMN SONG!!!!!!!1!!!
Desert of Song is a pretty chill song, it’s got that whole COUNTRY PROG DEATH METAL style to it, and Paul sings on it, so it must be the shit.
Swim to the Moon is a pretty cool song, cause it’s about my two favorite things: swimming and moons. I tried swimming to the moon once, but I wasn’t watching where I was swimming and somehow ended up on Venus. I thought I was going to die at first, but then I realized I was just having a nightmare. LOL! After I calmed down, I was kinda depressed cause I really wanted to get to the moon. :(
But, yeah THE GREAT MISDIRECT is the best BTBAM album, way better than all that nasty screaming shit like on their first album. That shits weak.
Whenever I’m in the mood to just get naked and have a ball listening to some of the worlds finest buttery smooth, sexual arousal evoking music, I certainly put on the colors cd. Thank you for your time, Brian J. Tart III
Oh and my email
maddawik@yahoo.com
My favorite btbam cd would have to be alaska because i think it best defines their range, take selkies for example, its half melodic and heart felt and half loud frightening and just scary. Laser speed, the cd’s last song, is a great way to end a brilliant album. It was their last “regular” album (average song lenghts and one or two set moods before their turn towards A Symphony of Progressive Metal.
As a bassist and music lover, Colours changed my life. It’s such a powerfull album I cannot describe what it did to my aproach in music and in life.
Funny story? I have one. 3 days prior the release of Colors, I had a huge fight with my girlfriend at the time (we were dating for about 3 years). She didn’t talk to me for 2 days (the longest we’ve been without speeking to each other) and we broke up. I went home and downloaded the album (I bought it a few days later). In that same night she called me and cryed over the phone about the whole situation and talked shit about me (she was “the boss” for the whole relationship), but for the first time I said to her “Shut the fuck up, I don’t wan’t to talk to you.”
For the rest of the month all my friends and family asked me how I was dealing with the situation. I was smilling with pure joy the entire time because of Colors, it was so mindblowing that it literally stopped me from going into some post-relationship deprecion or something like that I don’t know why but it just did. And thank you for that BTBAM, you have turned me into a fucking man.
My favorite BTBAM album is probably Colors. I realize that this is what the majority of fans will say, but I hope to prove that I have my own original reasons for loving this exquisite masterpiece.
The first time I heard of Between the Buried and Me was from my friend Paul who asked for a CD by BTBAM for Christmas, having heard the intro to the song “Alaska.” I went to FYE, saw Alaska and Colors, and picked out Alaska for him. Little did I know, this simple act would lead me deep into a musical realm from which I would never desire to return.
Paul was way into harcore and metal before I was; i still had trouble getting past the screaming. He began to love BTBAM, showing me songs such as “All Bodies” and “Roboturner” to display his newfound love. I slowly but surely cam to appreciate these two songs, especially the rabid musical style shifts of the former and the never-ending, hysteric, matrix-reminiscent latter. I remained only a casual listener of BTBAM and only a tiny teeny part of them at that. However, that all changed one fateful February when, at a Killswitch Engage concert, I received a demo disc containing “Sun of Nothing.”
I was blown away. I had never fathomed that such brilliance could even be attained in music. The paths that this band was taking, moving through moods and feelings as easily as a thought, astounded me, and I started to delve into Colors, starting by just listening to the first few tracks. Paul had shown me Foam Born A and B as well as Informal Gluttony, and I beleive it was a while before I even realized the format and length of the album. However, once i did, I quickly dumped my money into Itunes in order to complete Colors.
The sheerly natural manner in which the album progressed has affected me in such a deep way. I felt as if the music itself were a being that I could converse with, learn from, and own in a sense. I still feel as if my life is coming to a dramatic, peaceful, and epically satisfying culmination when I listen to the end of White Walls. I honestly felt like no band could ever make music again and pretend that it could be as pure as Colors. I have the CD, an electronic version, a vinyl record, the tab book, and the live CD/DVD. I just had to have Colors in as many formats as possible.
I have since delved into all (except for some of the self-titled album) of BTBAM’s work and have been consistently blown away by their work. However, no music has (and I beleive can) influence and affect me in the way that Colors has, It has honestly brought me on the verge of tears. I thank God for BTBAM.
and my email is variousfinerydisguises@gmail.com
If Pink Floyd hooked up with Rush and had a baby, and that baby grew up and decided to have a one night stand with Cynic, that baby would be Colors by Between the Buried & Me, This album musically is outstanding in every aspect, So by far Colors is my favorite album Ever!
email- diegoc08@yahoo.com
and btw, I did get over my distaste for screaming and fully support the ideas presented in “Ad a Dglgmut.” :)
Personally, I would say their Self-Titled cd was my favorite because every song on the cd has elements of just about EVERY genre of music on there. This is that one cd where you’ll be listening and be like, “I wish there would be a quiet calm part in this song… WAIT… WHAT’S THIS?” or “I wish this guy would sing instead of scr– WOAH! SINGING TOO?! I bet they wont have kick-ass breakdowns… nevermind.. they do, but they definitely don’t have any brutal death metal slam riffs– WHAT THE F__K?! THEY DO? But no INSANE solos… Why’d i even ask that here’s one now… sooo goood.” This cd has everything you want on it nothing you don’t, like those $5 footlongs at subways…
I absolutely loved The Silent Circus. That album really spoke to me in a way metal before that didn’t. That album not only turned me into a ravaging BTBAM cocksucker, but lead me to realize that there’s more to music then just intro-verse-chorus-verse-etc.
BTBAM also lead me into loving other metal and spreading to my friends and the community. The album’s songs were also so realistic and reflective of what Tommy was singing about. Like in Ad a Dglgmut where noise is being defined can be seen as beauty, even it doesn’t sound pretty.
This album shaped a lot of me, how i think, about myself, others or music. I would be such an honor to only own a bit equipment that my favorite artist use, but to use it to make something myself, as an aspiring musician, change someone else’s life.
But the path leading here is short and simple-
it is so like these aspirations
Just saw in another comment a girlfriend situation like I just posted, shi-. But hey, at least BTBAM knows they have that power on people.
Alaska was my favorite because it would be the story of my life if I had a carrot cake fetish.
Subsequently, I think it also embodies Elanor Roosevelt’s greatest quote “America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt, 1936″
Colors without a doubt. It is essentially between the buried and me as a whole. The band said that it was their most organic album they have written. It all came together seamlessly. It combines elements of their self titled, Silent Circus, and Alaska while stepping up their musicianship all together too. It really is the perfect album.
I’d have to say The Anatomy Of. The whole ‘release a record with ORIGINAL music on it’ thing has been done way too many times. Thankfully, BTBAM (as always) knows how to break boundaries. I was a little upset when I realized The Great Misdirect was yet another original album. Goodness, they already have four! Five is a bit overkill. I do, however, greatly enjoy their new focus on short songs and pop formats. If they HAD released another extravagantly composed cover album, I was looking forward to the possibility of songs by Progressive Metal experts such as Britney Spears, Kanye West, and Rick Astley.
Though The Great Misdirect is beginning to grow on me, I look forward to the day when they yet again destroy conventional views and dominate the mediocre mainstream media with their unrelenting unoriginality!
Trick question. I hate all of them..
I listen to them constantly..
I only had a 1 GB mp3 player when I discovered Alaska and The Silent Circus and didnt even bother trying to put anything else on..
I’ve forgotten how the original versions of the songs in The Anatomy Of go..
I missed a midterm because I was listening to The Great Misdirect for the first time..
I have started singing in the shower.. (heavily criticized)
I decorated my upstairs to emulate the Colors cover.. (included a painting I did.. I hate painting)
My girlfriend argues that I never listen to her because my ears can’t multitask..
I look crazy when I’m listening to a breakdown at a bus stop..
When someone doesn’t understand your music I take that personally..
I told a restaurant to call the name Don Condaldo yesterday when my burger was done..
Thanks for messing up every facet of my life with this incredible, epic, musical genius
Fuck me
scottdicker@mail.weber.edu
scottdickert@mail.weber.edu
haha what the hell
OH MY FUCK!! You go to my college!
The Great Misdirect. Yeah it’s a cop-out but I honestly COULD NOT put up with the monotonous vox of the singer until this very album. The rest of the band has always been kind of masturbatory (on the bands part, not mine), but now they seem focused. The Dream Theater-like meandering (e.g. Swim to the Moon) has a sense of story-like purpose on this one that strangely and relatively streamlines throughout the songs, rarely sounding as if a riff is out of context – a feat when considering how ambitious and vast these songs are. I dare you not to roll your eyes when examining the song lengths (6 songs…? An 18 min opus?), but even upon first listen you’ll find yourself having too much of a fucking blast to even comprehend when the next song ends. The angular and captivating aesthetic of the songs justify each and every second. Repeated listens just churn up how dense these songs are… and at some times how simple (e.g. Desert of Song). All in all, it topple just about all of they’re previous efforts in my mind (maybe minus ‘White Walls’). BTBAM has just pushed the envelope so far that I’m spooging all over their next release.
Colors is easily my all time favorite album, not only by Between The Buried And Me, but by any artist I’ve experienced. They shifted towards a more progressive and conceptual approach which hooked me from the start, with Paul Waggoner and Dustie Waring’s incredibly crafted guitar, Tommy Rogers’ deep and meaningful lyrics and great voice, Dan Briggs’ intricate and melodic bass, and of course Blake Richardson’s ridiculously tight drumming. Colors was a breath of fresh air from the monotony of more simple structures and generic sounds typical of modern heavy metal. I feared that after the Silent Circus and their self-title they would continue with the same sound. I was delightfully surprised to hear Alaska leaning towards a more progressive approach. I’ve seen BTBAM four times live, and absolutely loved every moment of each show. Their music moves me like no other, Colors is everything I ever wanted in an album. As for the new album, I feel as though Colors couldn’t be topped, but they certainly came very, very close. They brought new elements and pressed forward musically while fine tuning their now legendary style.
BTBAM –
I was going to write something arduously long and hardly cohesive, so I’ll just keep it simple.
The Great Misdirect is my favorite album because I believe it is proof, from my perceptive glance (which is questionable as far as reality goes), of Bell’s Theorem. All of my thoughts, for some reason, have manifested in your lyrics. I’ve had to take a step back and ask myself if it was really happening. Down to the wire. Proof of non-locality? Proof of a collective conscious? Pretty big assertions, and I’m in no way qualified to make them… But going from our primitive brain function and the implications of a “tuned-to-this-constant, only” setup, to the arbitrariness of the buildup and destruction of civilizations that line the history of this species, our species (what a species!), to the promise of tranquility upon death; I’ve thought about all of these things recently, and I’m sure you guys have been asking yourselves questions in your off time as well.
Something strange is going on, I’m just glad to be able to enjoy quantum moments with your music. I’ll be honest guys, all of your albums are great; and this whole giveaway thing, I probably won’t win. But if it means you guys get a few words from me, as an individual who has enjoyed your collective effort to share your lives artistically, then fuck it.
There’s 50 million feet of earth from where we are now to our deaths; an infinite number of particles walking a fine line of probability, popping in and out of existence. You guys are living the dream as a creative entity in a Universe working against us. Keep at it.
I think my favorite is The anatomy of, just because of the artwork. I mean, who comes up with a Hippocampus homonid geminis? or a homo cephalopod? Not to mention the fact that Between the Buried and Me can play more than just metal (Pretty good too!).
gilesn18@gmail.com
I LOVE doing my math homework while listening to the Counting Crows!
Colors is definitely my favorite album my Between the Buried and Me. It was the first one I heard and it contains the first song that I ever heard by BTBAM, Prequel to the Sequel. I can listen to this album over and over again and never get bored because of the great melodies mixed with the aggressiveness throughout. It never ceases to amaze me and because of this it is my favorite album.
My favourite BTBAM album is The Silent Circus because I’m deaf so I can appreciate the silence.
I can’t honestly say I have a favorite BTBAM album. I try to pick a foavrite sometimes.. but i cant. Every one is so different in relation to another. First you have the Self Titled. I love this album simply because its so unique in relation to other bands. The way they put their stuff together is just incredible. I think people over look that album too much. The Next is The Silent Circus. This album can be explained with one word… Epic. I’m not saying this is my favorite album at all, but it is very brutal in relation to their previous album, and the album that introduced me to the band (along with many other die hard fans). Heavier breakdowns (which I’m not all about by any means, i actually like how they don’t do too many), crazy riffs, deeper tone, and just an overall breath-taking feeling throughout the entire album. One thing that really sticks out to me with this album, is how Tommy’s vocals improve drastically. I mean he has some of the best vocals in the genre, and my favorite singer. He can go from his improved growls and such to a beautiful melodic voice (Ex. Ad a Dglgmut). This is what makes them so incredible. The lyrics are one of a kind, they have a sound so different from everybody else. Next is Alaska, one of the most insane albums of the genre. Starting off the brutality with All Bodies, you can’t go wrong. I mean it starts off heavy as hell, and then gradually goes into a singing session followed by a melodic, “happy-toned” solo, then going back to the brutality. Alaska following it is just as intense. The opening solo just goes to show how smooth Paul Waggoner can be. With Dusty, Dan, and Blake now being involved, this makes the perfect line-up. This cd just shows the start of their progressiveness. Separating the album into three different sections is just perfect. Each little interlude gives just a little break from the genius “deth-shred” taking part on this album. The most memorable, and one of the mmost popular songs by the band, is, yup… Selkies: The Endless Obsession. You can NOT say this song isn’t one of the best songs ever. Whether you like metal or not, this song should be appealing to you. Starting off with a keyboard, into a killer intro, then hitting the verse….. BOOM! you should already be left in awe. If that doesn’t do it for you, keep listening…. you have a soft transition into a harmonized solo/duet by Dusty and Paul. this is where it becomes epic. This solo builds up to the most beautiful guitar solo ever. I’m not saying this because its “sweep-picking cuz ohhh yeahhh sweepings so FUCKING cool!” (note the sarcasm.. im not really a fan of sweeps, but then again dont mind them too much), but because it is simply beautifully put together. I am not giving a line of bullshit when i say, to this day, if i listen to the song all the way through, i get goosebumps. I can swear on anything it happens. It’s just beautifully constructed, and shows how amazing and advanced these guys are with composing their stuff. I can be having sex, and hear selkies, and throw the bitch off me just to listen to the songs full effect. It’s just too good to not listen to. Haha… But Alaska is just as epic as the Silent Circus. It’s not close to being the same, but DAMN…. they know how to write music. Next is the most successful album, Colors. I’m sure everybody writing these has a copy of Colors. I love the album just as much as everybody else, and im going to say it… if not more. I Pre ordered the cd as soon as it was available. I was constantly watching the interpretation videos when they were available. I thought the idea of making an album with every song blending together as one was incredible. The way it starts off is just amazing. I have no favorite song on the album, because i feel it’s not complete if you dont listen to the entire thing. You cant just listen to one song and be satisfied. This shows how diverse these guys are. I mean you start off with a balad-like piano intro… then goes to a pretty opening solo, and it all starts happening. Then you have traces of bluegrass, jazz (like Alaska and a little of The Silent Circus), even alternative sounding stuff… just a world of musical madness! Then it all closes up with a piano playing a melody similar to Sun of Nothing. Its the perfect closing to a perfect cd. This shows how progressive they really are now. Now i know i haven’t mentioned The Anatomy Of… and I’ll explain why. I dont feel the album can be considered as…. like.. i dont know what word im looking for, ehhh.. original? noo.. well it really isn’t their writing, so i dont have much to say about how amazing it is, although i have a lot of comments. I love how they give credit to all of their influences. Every song has their own spin to it, which makes it worth listening to. My favorite cover is when Paul sings Change by Blind Melon. He is one person that can pull that song off without butchering it. Every song is amazing. I didint preorder this one, but i was still looking forward to it and bought it withing the first week of its release. But now The Great Misdirect is upon us. To be honest, i’ve only heard Obfuscation. I pre-ordered the cd off of Victory, but they wouldnt accept my card for some bogus reason… so i had to go to Amazon… This PISSES ME OFF!!!! Here it is, the 27th….. STILL NO BTBAM!!!!!!! FUCKKKKKKKKKK!!!! But back to the album. I haven’t heard much of it yet, but i know its going to be just as powerful as the previous albums. I’ve been reading about it for the longest time now… looking up every possible thing on release dates and pre-order packages…I’m so pumped. The day Obfuscation was streaming on Victory, i had that page open all day. I am now in a band named after the song hahaha…. its that rad. When i get the cd, i may update this. But all in all…. I have no favorite BTBAM album… they are my favorite band of all time. Any music they rellease, i will follow 110%. they havent put out anything disappointing yet, and i honestly dont think they can. They are one of a kind. They have influences from many genres, and show that in their music. Seriously, if you download their music, buy the cd after you listen. They deserve it. Don’t be a bunch of fuck bags and pirate their shit. BUY IT, ITS WORTH IT! 5 kick ass guys writing kick ass tunes. They deserve your (my) donations. I mean i have pre-ordered everything from alaska to now… with an exception of The Anatomy Of. They deserve the credit guys. Give this band what they deserve for blessing us with their music.
Thanks for the incredible music and sticking to what you believe.
One Love..
Alaska
Before the United States purchased Alaska from the Russians, all bodies were forced to run a great backwards marathon to recognize the birthday of the late roman emperor Julius Caesar. The key to winning this race is to breathe in and breathe out while carrying a medicine wheel. Priming oneself for the race requires a roboturner which stimulates the soles of their croakies and boatshoes, allowing pressure to be dispersed evenly throughout the body. This allowed runners to sprint at laser speeds and to autodidact with great efficiency. These runners were called selkies to admire Julius Caesars exceptional wardrobe. Through turmoil and distress, Caesar stayed strong, and looked good doing it.
That being said, the decade of statues was a fine era during the ancient roman empire where they worshipped the sun of nothing. They nicknamed the Germanic barbarians “the ants of the sky” because they were stupid and were colored viridian. Julius Caesar recognized that he was only the prequel to the sequel, so he adopted Caesar Augustus and foam bore a new emperor. Caesar was great at backtracking, especially after his informal gluttony made him sick to his stomach. It was a perfection that wasn’t replicated until the famous gupta empire of india.
This lost perfection led to the downfall of the indian subcontinent after mauryan rule. Luckily, due to the rule of little known Camilla Rhodes of Mordecai, India was able to flourish once more. Camilla burned down huts and villages with a destructo spin as a reaction to their lack of aesthetic value. This need of repetition led to the wedding of her and the first king of the gupta empire Chandra Gupta (aka Shevanel). “Ad a Dglgmut!” she exclaimed!
“Why? There are already 3 Dglgmuts here!” Shevanel retorted.
“Shevanel, take two! We must make room for more Dglgmuts!”
Luckily, during the great mirrors shortage of 312 CE, the Dglgmuts were able to harvest the Desert of song for sand to create more mirrors. However, Dglgmuts soon revolted! Their obfuscation was no longer apparent!
“This disease, injury, and madness must end! We wish to be free! We wish to break through these white walls! We wish to swim to the moon! Beyond the stars and into the night sky! We wish to scale cloud mountain, and feed upon its nutritious berries and herbs!”
Shevanel made a deal, cut a flip (if you will). He would not allow these Dglgmuts, these arsonists, to destroy his empire! Shevanel agreed to acknowledge the aspirations of the Dglgmuts. In his wisdom, he foresaw conflict amongst the Dglgmuts. Allowing them to expand would leave more of themselves to kill; Thus, the Dglgmut civil war began.
“What have we become?” Cried one Dglgmut mathematician (computers as they were called).
“Enough! You must perish!” snarled his adversary. And with the use of a weapon, three dglgmuts fell naked by the computer. The computer was then slain. The war grew brutal, the wound was salted, and the Dglgmuts grew thirsty for blood. Their dry mouths were quenched with fire! Circus’s were silent during this era, so fire breathers were hard to come by.
During the war, the great library of Mordecai was burned to the ground, destroying Dglgmut artifacts, transcripts, and literature. All that remains are the people whose ancestors claimed to be Dglgmuts.
Though they may be a lost people, Dglgmuts will forever have a place in the hearts of historians and magicians alike.
Alaska
For all of my life I’ve been obsessed with two things: the Great White North and Metal
It started when my Grandma told me we had land in the Klondike. When my Grandfather died, she gave me the deeds. I was so stokes, but then I did some research online and found out they were fake. When it was a part of American Territory, a cereal company thought it would be good for advertisement if they gave away inch squares of land in their boxes. Then Canada bought the land.
Then came the movies, namely Insomnia, about Alaska that got to me.
Then one Thanksgiving on the way to a turkey roast, my friend slipped Alaska in the player. My mind was blown! Selkies was like the most amazing mind trip I’d ever heard! And they really were able to capture the feeling of Alaska with that record.
Amazing band
“Colors,” but only because I have not been able to fully comprehend everything just yet from “The Great Misdirect.”
When “Colors” came out in Aug. ‘07, it blew my mind. I had never heard anything so musically and lyrically stimulating. I listened to over and over again. Then I saw it live. TWICE. IN THE SAME MONTH! Once at The Conservatory in Oklahoma City and once at The Picador in Iowa City. I must say that these were the two best concerts I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. Simply flawless. Then I received the “Colors Guitar Tablature Book” that Paul had written and then my life became sort of a “Colors Training Camp.” I had recently moved to Iowa to live with my best friend, Austin, and was currently attending high school. Do to above-average academics, I only needed to attend school until 10:45am. Since I only had a fifteen minute drive home from school, I was converting the tab book to Powertab from 11:00am until at least 2:00am EVERY DAY. I did this for a month straight, learning every second of “Colors” from Paul’s perspective. Until just recently, the only thing I would listen to or play on guitar was “Colors.” But now that “The Great Misdirect” has finally been released, I guess that will change from just “Colors” to “Colors” and “The Great Misdirect.”
This band has made me the musician that I am today. Without them, I can’t even imagine were I would be at with my playing and understanding of music.
The Great Misderct is my favorite. It doesn’t matter that Swim to the Moon sounds like it was stolen from Dream Theater, because it’s better than Dream Theater. Also, I splooge everytime I hear the beginning of Fossil Genera.
PS: I could really use that Spector.
Personal favorite would have to be colors. The only way this album can described is by referencing “Ratatouille”. That scene with the fat rat eating and the flavors swirling while he learns to savor food, that’s what everyone should be experiencing with BTBAM.
Colors. It’s their least confusing album title.
I would have to say The Silent Circus is my favorite album thus far. However the more I listen to the Great Misdirect the more I like it. So I guess time will tell.
This is one hard goddamn question. In all honesty the Great Misdirect is my new favorite. BTBAM has always been amazing at pushing the envelope, and they’re obviously not stopping now. The transitions on the new album, as well as the lyrical content…it’s just mind-blowing. Mirrors is such a phenomenal intro to it all. The dissonant notes, vocal harmonies, and particularly the bass solo just shows that these guys aren’t settling for just anything. To think they intend to play this album live in it’s entirety says to me, “We have more stamina than any band on this fucking planet!” I feel that in writing this album, they gave everyone a moment to shine… Staying true to their roots, but expanding to the point of sheer perplexity. I really enjoy the use of the slide/classical/fretless bass guitars. Listening to this album from start to finish is an incredible journey. Paul shreds our mortal faces off, while Dusty stays true to his chugging rhythm parts and intricate time signatures. (Lets face it, they’re like peas and carrots….except BADASS.) Dan’s bass parts are some of the most intriguing in not just metal, but damn near every genre. At the core you have Blake’s pummeling insanity, driving every note and making me feel as if a portion of my brain has been removed. Last, but certainly not least is Tommy…His lyrics have certainly come leaps and bounds. The material is just mind boggling. From the abstract concepts and ironic social commentary to the moments of clarity and beauty…I just can’t stop listening. More so than the lyrics, his dynamic vocal work is unsurpassed. The backwards marathon-esque scream in fossil genera gives me chills every time. All in all this album exceeded all of my expectations (which were quite high, i assure you). Being a musician, I have to say these men are my fucking heroes.
Colors is definitely my favorite album. It’s an album very hard to beat by any other band. The variety of what they play makes it an interesting piece. One minute they’ll be playing hardcore riffs, the next some not so hardcore jazzy stuff. Everytime I listen to the album, I don’t just pick one song, I have to listen to the entire thing, and fuck itunes for putting spaces in between the tracks. Everytime I hear any song off that album, I hear a part I’ve never heard before. They can capture a million thoughts or emotions in one beat a drum, a strum of a guitar, or a scream into the mic.
Colors would be my favorite BTBAM album. It literally changed the way I listen to music, I don’t think any other album will have the effect Colors had on me. I love having it in my car when I’m driving my friends around and they’ll say “turn the damn death metal off!” and 30 seconds later there’s an accordion playing. The looks on their faces…. I think it’s pretty safe to say that Metal+Didgeridoo+Banjo+Accordion=WIN.
My favorite cd has to be Alaska. It was the first time i had ever listened to a metal cd and it was the cd to get me interested in metal. Not only is the music amazing but the lyrics give me chills every time i listen to them. I actually had to buy another copy of it because my first was ruined from being listened to so much.
Favorite album? Colors.
I heard prequel to the sequel on rock band and thought “the fuck is this?”
And then I fell in love. My world seemed to show me a path covered in sunshine. But I soon noticed that I was walking more staggered than normal. Then I saw BTBAM live at Amos’ Southend a few weeks ago and everything made sense again. Colors is legit fucking amazing. I’m still learning Dan’s basslines for some of the songs and I must say, I am impressed. You guys rock.
My favorite btbam album is Colors. This album was the backtrack to my life this year. It makes my life seem like more than decade of statues. When I’m informaly gluttonous i listen to it as well. When im feeling like I’m the sun of nothing, i look to the ants in the sky to bring me back from the prequel to the sequel. The varidian color of my eyes gazes at white walls so often without much idea what to do with it, but this album taught me to see all the possibilties.
…yea i did just do that…
It begins. A slow, melancholy piano melody. Soon, a beautiful voice alights upon the sorrowful chords. It sings sweet nostalgia, caressing your eardrums. “I’ll just keep waiting…” it tells you. Yet a subtle ominousness is present, a feeling that something amazing is about to take place. The piano and vocals end on one ringing chord, and a snare drum counts off…
Then it hits you.
An enormous sonic wall of guitar, drums, and bass playing a chord progression so beautiful that it’s almost painful. Soaring vocal harmonies and a series of synthesizer arpeggios are added as the intensity grows; then something changes. Something is not right. A coarse, ruthless voice begins screaming words into your ears. Blast beats kick in as the intensity continues to grow. A single chord is being played, pummeling you relentlessly as the screams continue. It all comes to a concentrated, unbearable climax, and then…
Everything goes dark. Any trace of beauty is now gone; dissonance reigns supreme. The band continues continues their sonic assault on the senses as you are force fed some of the most ugly, horrifying, and fierce riffs and vocals you have ever experienced.
But you love every minute of it.
This is the beginning of Between the Buried and Me’s COLORS, what I believe to be the most perfect continuous piece of music ever created. It is incomprehensible, it is symmetrical, it is ridiculously complex, it is multifaceted, it is aggressive, it is peaceful, it is poignant and it is brutal. But most of all, it’s fuckin’ amazing. Throughout this 64 minute musical odyssey, you are exposed to the most mind-blowingly diverse range of sounds ever to appear on a single record. Tommy, Paul, Dustie, Dan, and Blake show you that they are truly masters of their craft as they take you on the most amazing ride of your life. COLORS is one gigantic, self-contained opus that expresses the entire spectrum of emotions possible to a human being; it truly lives up to its title. There are parts that are incredibly angry and parts that are unbelievably happy. There are soothing parts, sad parts, and even funny parts. Cascading waves of emotion fall one after another upon you as you are brought through relaxing lows, intense buildups, and astonishing climaxes. Even the album itself is one giant climax. It picks you up, tears you to pieces, and sets you back down with another beautiful piano melody in the same key as the first, and all the tension built up throughout the album is finally resolved with one last, conclusive, fulfilling note of the piano that leaves you with the most amazing feeling in the world. Without a doubt, I can say that COLORS is the greatest piece of music I have heard in my entire life.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
The Anatomy Of, Duh!
Just Kidding. I’ve listened to Colors more than any album I’ve ever bought. From any band. Ever. But, I have to say, I must give much appreciation to Alaska, because if it wasn’t for Selkies I might have never gotten into BTBAM in the first place. Of course this contest is over in december, by then my favorite might be The Great Misdirect.
my favourite between the buried and me album would have to be the silent circus because “i’m a man, you’re a man, we’re a man, it’s a mans land”. aaaahahahaha, no, but for realz. it seemed to me like a perfected rendition of the self titled album. this album was way ahead of the curve, even though it didnt feature dusty, dan or blake (love you guys).from lost perfection to the man land this album is one that i won’t let anyone forget in my lifetime. ive got “it all makes sense, we’re capable of beauty, through sounds that make one cringe, the dogs only hear us now” tattooed on my arm to represent not only my love for your talents, but also that everything is nothing without perspective, and there are a whole lot of those running around.
in case you guys cant see my email adress, it’s brooksmac11@yahoo.com
i will have to say the silent circus, i heard of btbam in late 2005 and waited patiently for 6 months for a slacker friend of mine to burn me the silent circus, when i finally got it i was in complete shock, from the story of lost perfection to the epic breakdowns in Camilla Rhodes, not to mention the startling consciousness of the lyrics, Mordecai hit home first listen, into the next few minutes of solitary confinement in wandering our dreams, i believe the TSC carries the tone of what legends BTBAM would become to be. Ad a Dglgmut became a great anthem to the modern personal struggle that music is; the chaotic static that is our new human noise. Throughout the harsh chords and chaotic melodies, TSC became my own anthem through a growing adolescence of discovery and tragedy, being able to seclude myself without being alone.
i owe much of my personal being to the music they have made, and since discovering btbam i have been studying theory and working on becoming a better musician to achieve what i truly enjoy in this life, music.
did i mention i play bass!
I love Alaska simply because it was the first BTBAM album I bought, and lost a week later. So I bought another copy. And found the previous one a week later. So I gave the other copy to my coworker. And then lost my orginal AGAIN later on in the year. Then I bought The Anatomy Of… and LOVED IT AGAIN!!!!
BTBAM4LYFE!!!
So, I have been a fan ever since you guys hit up Orlando for the Progressive Nation Tour. My Dream theater loving friends dragged me out to that. After that performance, I went out and bought the Colors Live CD/DVD combo. In my opinion, that was the greatest of album of all time,.. Until yesterday when The Great Misdirect came out. That blew the Jew-fro off my head. I really really really like how Tommy got some awesome synth in it. Oh my favorite song is definitely Swim to the Moon… It starts out with a full-blown percussion solo..! I’ve listened to it fully twice since last night (Yes, I found some time at school). Seriously, no other band can combine so many themes of music as fluently as you guys can. I consider you musical geniuses.
Colors saved my life. I was in the state of Alaska, oddly enough, on the verge of jumping off of a cliff into a giant (pack?) of Alaskan penguins, sure of the fact that my life was over after waiting too long for a sequel to BTBAM’s “Alaska”, coincidentally enough. Little did I know at the time, that there are no native penguins in Alaska. My plan had failed. However, this means that these particular penguins must have come from near the equatorial region of the Earth. I was convinced that maybe they could help me find what I was looking for, obviously coming from a more populated place than I had been in at the time. Trying miserably to speak penguin, I failed. I think I got a few words though, like “fish” and “washcloth”, but nothing solid. They looked at me like a cow looks at a new fence. I held up my disc-only copy of BTBAM’s Alaska CD, to see if maybe they understood the pursuit I had been engaged in. (The case had been snatched and eaten by several other native species to the floating state….namely Sarah Palin and her kin.) They instantly perked up and glared at the disc, as if it were some giant glowing orb. I then noticed that there was a giant glowing orb floating behind the disc. It was the moon. I held up the disc with my other hand, so they could see what it was. They still did the same, so I figured that they must have been paying attention to the disc in the first place. It turns out, after finding a penguin translator, that they had been looking for this particular album. They had heard, and were particularly entranced by BTBAM’s debut album, and needed their penguin-music-oriented fix. Hearing of “Alaska” (the album), but having no pockets or human money to spend, they instinctively swam from the equatorial regions to Alaska, in search of it. Naturally, they had found what they were looking for, but that was my personal copy. I wasn’t ready to deal with such a big commitment between my new penguin pals and I. Sharing a fantastic album takes a lot of trust on my end. I took my new penguin buddies to a local record store in an attempt to satiate their hunger for more face-gnashing, awe-inspiring, intestine-shredding magic that is BTBAM. I offered to buy it for them, but this record store was out of “Alaska.” The owner laughed at me, and then at one of the penguins. His macaroni eyebrows were apparently too hilarious to be allowed in the store. I told him to wait outside. Naturally, having one of their pack’s members shunned, (I think it may have been the alpha-male) the penguins were a little disgruntled at this point in time. They threatened to peck my eyes out if I couldn’t find Alaska in the next 5 minutes. (I learned the exact phrase “We are going to peck your eyes out in the next 5 minutes if you don’t get us some Between the Buried and Me” from the penguin translator. He said it might help if I knew that phrase, but no other phrases were as important. I guess he was right.) I asked the manager, who, still rolling on the floor laughing, reminded me of one of those arctic hyenas that people all-the-time talk about. He said that “Colors”, the new album by Between the Buried and Me, had come out 3 days ago. (Remember the number 3, it’s important.) I bought a copy for the penguins, scared for my life. They took it and examined it, and put it into their CD player. (I don’t know how they had a CD player. Please bear with me for the purpose of the story.) They generally approved, and noted that the intro to Informal Gluttony reminded them of their jungle days, hanging with chimpanzees and proboscis monkeys. They have funny noses. I didn’t know penguins lived in the jungle too. Apparently there ARE some things that scientists can’t find out from “research.” They burned a copy, which I strongly advised against, but allowed for the time being (my life was still in danger) and then gave me the copy of Colors to keep for myself. Content with hearing the album all the way through at least once, they flew away, probably back to the jungle. (Again with scientists and their false discoveries, apparently.) The record store owner looked at me and shrugged. I began on my long journey home, and began floating toward the sun……it was the only way I knew to get home. And now I shall swim to the moon……..
I have to say their self titled album. Just for the uber hair metal scream in ‘Aspirations’. MERGE WITH DECAY! DECAY AND NEGLEEEEEEEEEECT!!!!! I always put on my skin tight zebra print pants and rock the hell out of it. True story.
The Great Misdirect.
There’s nothing like that new CD smell.
Well i love the new album, i know everybody’s probably saying how they love the old albums because that’s what elitist metal heads do but i like the new one because every song sounds almost like a different band (in a good way) and for only have 6 songs its a great listen and a very full album. The use of country on that gives it a lot more feel and soul than the others and it just out right kick ass. Its nice to see a band go in a different direction without selling out or killing there sound, they keep there roots while moving in a new direction and most bands cant do that so mad ups to you guys and keep it coming
P.S BTBAM+VOM+AAL=BEST TOUR EVER!!!!
Why cant i live in Texas? :(
My email is king_of_brutallity@hotmail.com
Thanks
Mike
I’d have to say Colors takes it for me. I started playing bass guitar because of Dan. That CD was on a constant loop for me. Everything coming together so flawlessly showing what can be done with skill and sound. Being an art student it was hard to start a drawing at times but for me all it took was Between the Buried and Me. At times creativity seemed to be a dried up well, yet thankfuly, I had Colors right there to push me into my work and want to give every drawing the creative spin it was lacking. I even did so much as buy a 5 string bass to hopefuly some day be able to keep up with the bass god that is Dan.
I like colors the best because I came at least 5 1/2 time while listening to it.
I was going to say Colors, but holy fuck, The Great Misdirect is incredible on an entirely new level. As soon as I heard Swim to the Moon I got pregnant, and I’m a man. Seriously though, I’m having a tough time wondering if I like White Walls or Swim to the Moon more. White Walls was my previous favorite song of all time out of any artist to ever exist, but I’m not so sure now. Fossil Genera has to be the most unique, yet one of the catchiest BTBAM songs there are. The Great Misdirect covers so many different emotions, and I have already fell in complete love with it. I can honestly say that this CD will not leave my CD player for at least a little over a month.
There’s nothing like hearing Paul’s amazing guitar work, his playing and the things he writes is truly beyond me. Paul is my one and only idol, and I aspire to be able to play just like him one day. That’s not too likely though. And Tommy is absolutely my favorite writer; his lyrics are always running through my head because they’re so creative and thought-provoking. I truly think there is no one like Dan, he’s completely mastered the bass in my opinion, and Blake is unbefuckinglievable (Yes, that’s a word) at drums. And last not definitely not least, Dustie. He’s an excellent guitarist, and I think he’s truly overlooked too much – he’s capable of so many things, and he inspires me as well.
Anyway, I can’t wait till you guys come to Michigan for the full US tour; I promise you I will be right up fucking front screaming every lyric. You guys are truly the greatest band to ever exist, thank you for all of your music, it’s definitely one of the biggest parts of my life.
I won’t make it too long because HOLY SH*T! you guys have a lot of responses already, some of them are books! But that just shows how YOU GUYS really have an amazing fan-base. All of your music moves me emotionally, mentally, and physically ;) But with COMPLETE seriousness, my favorite album would definitely have to be The Great Misdirect. Which, to ME is quite amazing because Colors had been my favorite album ever; but just a couple runs of TGM quickly changed that. It’s sooo diverse and original, its kinda hard to explain. Well let me put it this way, Colors offered drum parts that I could eventually learn, but TGM offers drum parts I think I will only be able to listen to until I become a drum god of some sort. But it’s not just the drums, it’s the insane sweeps, vocals, emotions, etc, and the overall journey the album takes me on. Thank you BTBAM, ‘YOU GUYS COMPLETE ME’ :D
Certainly colors. I thought, if me and some friends can put together at least ONE song and play it, were all getting laid. I mean, if music turns to sex, and sex turns to a thumbs up, I give that album four thumbs up. I made my girlfriend watch Colors live, and half way into Ants of The Sky she asked if we could turn in off. Without hesitation I dumped her and told her to get out of my house. We dated for eleven months, and by god I thought I knew the girl. The ridiculous theory oriented shut the fuck up mozart we are blasting through the waves of sound 8 track masterpiece is truly a piece of mastery. In all seriousness though this is the only album I have in my car, and up until The Great Misdirect listened to at least two songs daily, amazing work guys really and I will be seeing you soon.
When I first heard of Between The Buried And Me my initial impression was that they were like every other Metalcore band; a group of “musicians” who were cycling through the motions of the metal music industry, waiting to writing the best breakdown on the market.
At the time Colors had just come out and I was completely oblivious to the band and was going through some of the worst changes in my life. My three-year relationship with my girl friend at the time had just collapsed and I had just entered my first year of University. I ended up dropping out of school and went back home to work and collect myself. I don’t remember how/when I first heard it (Colors) but there was something about this well orchestrated piece of music that made all my hate, sadness, regret and pain leave me for 64.21 minutes everyday. I would walk out in minus twenty-degree weather through snow-covered woodlands, fields and valley’s. Blaring Colors on my ipod and trying to forget what was going on in my everyday life. Although Colors wasn’t the only thing I listened to, it was definitely my prime means of escape for a good year and a half. I returned to school the following fall and decided that I would be going all the way with my studies. During this time I kept listening to Colors (everyday at least 2-3 times) while introducing myself to other progressive metal acts, such as Opeth, Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, ISIS, Gojira and many others. As hard as tried I wasn’t able to delve into my work as much as I wanted. There was something about my settings, courses and the music that I surrounded myself with that affected my academic performance…I realized that you only live once and during that time you have to do (sorry for being a cheese ball) what you love and have dreamt of the longest. I had been playing guitar for about 7-8 years at the time and had recently purchased the Colors tab book. Ever since I was about 12 years old I had been in love with metal music and had always wanted to play and tour with a group. With a combination of listening/playing Colors and the weight of my responsibilities/actual dreams I made the decision to return home once again and start from scratch. I wanted to make music that would help people in their everyday problems, just as Colors helped me. So I guess in some ways you could say that because of BTBAM I made the decision to become a musician. As of right now I am saving up money for music school and writing/recording with my band.
In summary, some of the biggest personal changes/turning points in my life have been affected (in a positive way) because of music, which gives me goose bumps and makes me look outside myself. I know that this is a contest submission and I do care that I win, but I would rather the members of BTBAM read this and feel a sense of fulfillment in that they helped save a life (even though a contest judge will probably read this). If the odds work in my favour and the members of the band read this, I just like to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Peace and Love boys!!!! :D
potatoe_killer_69@hotmail.com
ps
Sorry for the over all tween-ish dramatic story telling, but I can assure you that its 100% true. My friends and I are holding a listening part for The Great Misdirect on the 6th of November. So if the band wants to come out, by all means do!!! Hahaha :P
My favorite BTBAM album? I actually have to pick!? Fuck!
So I guess I’ll pick Colors. It painted my sheets white.
The Silent Circus because when it first came out i listened to it all day everday and had people tell me how they had seen you a shitload of times and you guys never played mordecai (which was my favorite song) and i saw you twice and both times you guys played it i was so overtaken i cried.. it was AWESOME!
I would have to say that my favorite Between the Buried and Me album is Colors. First and foremost, the album has amazing structure musically and it truly shows that Between the Buried and Me, as a group, knows how to compose a good piece of music. Additionally, Colors shows each musician’s proper technique and knowledge of instrument/part while complimenting each other and their role in the album. It is also quite impressive that such good music can still make sense while incorporating a modern Metal sound. These are legitimate attributes to a successful band.
Setting that aside, the true reason why I appreciate this album the most is mainly because it has impacted me tremendously on a personal level. It all started when I first began to realize the sophistication of the music in Colors. Although, it wasn’t the first time listening through it that caused me to change my perspective on the music; it took quite a bit of time before I became curious of how a group of people were capable of expressing ideas through music. Through the first few months of listening to it, I began to realize what one of the most important aspect of music was: expression. Before that, I was sort of close-minded to many aspects of music, including some metal. Overall, I’ve truly come to appreciate music as a whole being rather than portions that are comfortable and familiar to me.
Furthermore, this album alone has influenced me to take some leaps in my life that caused me to become the person I am today. Since the first time I listened to Colors, I’ve taken a Music Theory class and I’ve taken guitar more seriously. Not only have I concentrated on proper technique, but I actually think about what I play on guitar now. Essentially, I’ve learned to think on a different and more analytical level. Not to mention, while branching out into the musical world, I’ve made many accomplishments in my high school career.
To say the least, the most fascinating thing about this album is how it has changed my life. Granted, everything I’ve done since has been accomplished through my own efforts and ambitions, but ultimately Colors was the first step of the transition I’ve made as a person. It makes me grateful that there is always something in the world to make someone set a goal and follow through with something, no matter what it is. In my case, it was Colors. Between the Buried and Me should be proud to have created that album not only because it’s a good name for the Progressive Metal genre, but because it really is an inspiring piece on so many levels. Thanks guys, keep writing amazing music!
On another note, I love The Great Misdirect. It’s an awesome addition to my music collection and I hate to exclude it from this review, but I’ve only listened through the whole thing about seven times and I would like to become as familiar with it as I am with Colors. I’m sure I will be confident in my thoughts about it as soon as I get to that point.
Colors has been by far been my favorite BTBAM album….UNTIL The Great Misdirect which only only returns to some of the band’s earlier roots and has the heaviest music of their career in segments but it also pushes the band forward without losing the integrity and identity of their sound.
i will have to say color.. or “colours” as us canadians would say.. i cant eve begin to fathom how you would write an album like that.. simply.. honestly.. It Made My Dick Wet! good stuff dudes!
i mean colors.. i suck
Colors has to be my favorite album. Since it was released, there have been very few days in which I have not listened to White Walls. Mostly I use it as an aphrodisiac. Works so well, I think it should be marketed as a metal-lovers E.D. treatment.
I would have to say that my favorite Between the Buried and Me album is Colors. First and foremost, the album has amazing structure musically and it truly shows that Between the Buried and Me, as a group, knows how to compose a good piece of music. Additionally, Colors shows each musician’s proper technique and knowledge of instrument/part while complimenting each other and their role in the album. It is also quite impressive that such good music can still make sense while incorporating a modern Metal sound.
Setting that aside, the true reason why I appreciate this album the most is mainly because it has impacted me tremendously on a personal level. It all started when I first began to realize the sophistication of the music in Colors. Although, my poor perspective on music didn’t change the first time listening to it all the way through; it took quite a bit of time before I became curious of how a group of people were capable of expressing ideas through music. Before that, I was sort of close-minded to many aspects of music, including some metal. Overall, I’ve truly come to appreciate music as a whole being rather than portions that are comfortable and familiar to me.
Furthermore, this album alone has influenced me to take some leaps in my life that caused me to become the person I am today. Since the first time I listened to Colors, I’ve taken a Music Theory class and I’ve taken guitar more seriously. Not only have I concentrated on proper technique, but I actually think about what I play on guitar now. Essentially, I’ve learned to think on a different and more analytical level. Not to mention, I’ve made many accomplishments in my high school career since I have branched out into the musical world. I’ve ultimately become a more aspiring and successful individual.
To say the least, the most fascinating thing about this album is how it has changed my life. Granted, everything I’ve done since has been accomplished through my own efforts and ambitions, but ultimately Colors was the first step of the transition I’ve made as a person. It makes me thankful that there is always something in the world to make someone set a goal and follow through with it. Between the Buried and Me should be proud to have created that album not only because it’s a good name for the Progressive Metal genre, but because it really is an inspiring piece on so many levels. Thanks guys, keep writing amazing music!
On another note, I love The Great Misdirect. It’s an awesome addition to my music collection and I hate to exclude it from this review, but I’ve only listened through the whole thing about seven times and I would like to become as familiar with it as I am with Colors. I’m sure I will be confident in my thoughts about it as soon as I get to that point.
I would have to say that my favorite Between the Buried and Me album is Colors. First and foremost, the album has amazing structure musically and it truly shows that Between the Buried and Me, as a group, knows how to compose a good piece of music. Additionally, Colors shows each musician’s proper technique and knowledge of instrument/part while complimenting each other and their role in the album. It is also quite impressive that such good music can still make sense while incorporating a modern Metal sound. All of these are legitimate attributes to a successful band.
Setting that aside, the true reason why I appreciate this album the most is mainly because it has impacted me tremendously on a personal level. It all started when I first began to realize the sophistication of the music in Colors. Although, my poor perspective on music didn’t change the first time listening to it all the way through; it took quite a bit of time before I became curious of how a group of people were capable of expressing ideas through music. Before that, I was sort of close-minded to many aspects of music, including some metal. Overall, I’ve truly come to appreciate music as a whole being rather than portions that are comfortable and familiar to me.
Furthermore, this album alone has influenced me to take some leaps in my life that caused me to become the person I am today. Since the first time I listened to Colors, I’ve taken a Music Theory class and I’ve taken guitar more seriously. Not only have I concentrated on proper technique, but I actually think about what I play on guitar now. Essentially, I’ve learned to think on a different and more analytical level. Not to mention, I’ve made many accomplishments in my high school career since I have branched out into the musical world. I’ve ultimately become a more aspiring and successful individual.
To say the least, the most fascinating thing about this album is how it has changed my life. Granted, everything I’ve done since has been accomplished through my own efforts and ambitions, but ultimately Colors was the first step of the transition I’ve made as a person. It makes me thankful that there is always something in the world to make someone set a goal and follow through with it. Between the Buried and Me should be proud to have created that album not only because it’s a good name for the Progressive Metal genre, but because it really is an inspiring piece on so many levels. Thanks guys, keep writing amazing music!
On another note, I love The Great Misdirect. It’s an awesome addition to my music collection and I hate to exclude it from this review, but I’ve only listened through the whole thing about seven times and I would like to become as familiar with it as I am with Colors. I’m sure I will be confident in my thoughts about it as soon as I get to that point.
Sorry, don’t know how it posted twice.
E-mail: daniel.brandon.kelly@gmail.com
It’s a hard choice but I’d have to say Colors because it creates a sense of synesthesia in every song. You can almost hear the colors (and then there’s the witty naming of “Viridian” and “White Walls” to top it off).
It’s a very diverse album with delicate lyrics that make it all the better.
“White Walls” is simply the most epic song to end an album with.Colors has cathartic properties. Whenever I listen to it I feel purified and dignified in a way. Like I’ve ascended to the top of this gigantic mountain and I’m looking down, exhausted but content and at the same time distraught from the weight of the world and the intricacies of life.
Not to sound condescending, but this album deserves that kind of wording. It’s just epic. That’s BTBAM. A massive battle between two titans and the close look at the beautiful flowers they stomp on and the glow of the sunlight as the world collpases around them!
I meant “COLLAPSES”.
Sorry :/
Alaska because I came the first time I listened to it…….I was at a party doing a chick in the bedroom and i heard it outside and was like what the fuck is the amazing music.
I like Colors, because you manage to fit a motherfuckin’ honky-tonk hoe-down in there and make it not seem weird.
alaska because it was the band’s last album. the band was obviously killed off by genius shape-shifting robots from the future who took on their personas and wrote (and then toured) the colors album to perfection and stole everyone’s hearts.
It’s hard to choose a favorite album from the best band ever, but I guess if I had to I’d say Colors because I was at the dvd show like a day early and got to talk to Tommy for a little while and it was cool as fuck.
Alaska is my favourite record because once, I was surrounded by a pack of ravenous wolves. Finding myself cornered with only my my Ipod and a nearby stereo, I did what I knew would stop the upcoming slaughter. I quickly plugged in my Ipod, and played Autodidact, skipping to 4:33. With one last triumphant “PISSS IT AAAAALL AWWWAAAAAAAAAYYY”, the sheer brutality of the breakdown made every wolf in the vicinity undergo spontaneous combustion. Then I went home.
my favorite BTBAM album? i’d say “Colors” mainly because it’s just this great wave of sound.
well, that album has actually influenced the way i write and it’s the album i wish i could create.
i remember when i first heard the record; it’s opening track just really relaxing me even with it’s swift change from a pop sounding track to a metal-esque sounding one and then it goes into the rest of the album.
the album itself lives up to it’s name “Colors.” every time i’ve listened to the record i’ve closed my eyes and i’ve been able to see colors. colors in the form of the sounds that come out. i’ve been able to see colors for every note, chord, vocal, every literal sound that comes out from the record.
it’s just a great album and i’m glad i had the chance to hear it. even more glad that i own it. BTBAM’s the only band whose records i actually buy. although i don’t own “The Great Misdirect” yet. (got no cash)
Last December I went with about friends to see BTBAM at the Soap Box in Wilmington NC. Their set was amazing. Backward Marathon, Selkies, Sun of Nothing were ones that stood out in my mind. But the hands down best part of the night, was as an encore they played Viridian/White Walls. Shit got intense. Now Colors is my favorite album, not just of BTBAM, but of any band I like Viridian/White Walls also happens to be the most amaizng combo ever written. When me and my best friend listen to it, no matter where we are, or who we are with when Tommy screams, “This is all we have when we die. This is what’s left of us, when we die!” We scream along with it. Now since we were seeing it like and adrenaline was pumping through my veins, I jumped up on stage and screamed “This is what’s left of us, when we die!” along with Tommy and the whole venue. I then proceeded to stage dive, however, I was so in the moment, I didn’t look before I leaped and jumped straight into an area no one was standing in. HAHA! I was fine for that night, but I could hardly move for the next 3 days. And it was totally fucking worth it.
Alaska. I’m from the state, and it’s nice that when I search it on youtube, in addition to watching nature footage and old Palin commentary, I can get my face swept off.
Alaska, definenitely because it was the first time I heard BTBAM and it instantly put everything else on the back burner. Then to hear the anatomy of and find that i grew up listening to almost every band they covered….from then on i have not missed a local show or highly anticipated each new album. win or lose, keep the music coming!
My favourite BTBAM album is Alaska because I AM FROM ROMANIA!!!!
I honestly cannot pick a favorite album. These guys have been my favorite band since the self-titled album came out. Every single album just gets better and better. And not just the musicianship, but the production, the emotion, everything. This band never ceases to boggle my mind. But if i aabsolutely had to pick a favorite album it would probably be Alaska because it was just so intricate and amazing and it forever changed the way i listen to music.
My favorite album is the newest one. TGM is a defining piece of musical awesomeness, and it is the best anything ever.
Listening to this album from start to finish both astounds and confuses me in a way that no other music I have in my collection does. Then again, most all the BTBAM albums are good in that way because there’s never a dull moment. Every time the music shifts, you’re pretty much forced to be all ears and stop whatever else it is you’re doing to go “what is happening?!”
prkchpsndwchs@gmail.com
Just when you thought BTBAM’s music couldn’t get any more epic, any sweeter, any more blow your mind unexpected! they come out with The Great Misdirect.
I had been counting down the months/days till this CD released on Oct 26 thinking, “how can they top off Colors?” Oh they topped it off alright, in a way I couldn’t conceive possible. Colors was my top CD prior due to the complexity of the guitar riffs as well as the ochestrated sound they made their own. And Blake’s drum pattern during Sun of Nothing “Always pushing it all away… …floating away”, holy hell it gets me every time! Colors is actually what got me into BTBAM and into metal. I love all their prior stuff (especially Backwards Marathon) and listening to Tommy’s range in his voice, that has yet to be beaten ..or even done by anyone else!
Nuff of my garble about Colors, it’s The Great Misdirect where the money shots areYou’ll be in peace<
You’ll be in peace<
i’d also like to ad that when i die, the solo to selkies is going to played at my funeral as they’re carrying me out. i decided this the very first time i heard it. and it will never change.
Starts off like Colors, ends out with swimming to the moon. Transitions pretty well directly after White Walls too(coincidence??). It has everything you could ever want: ragtime, jazz, marching band, orchestra, even country(Go Paul Waggoner!). All with that pronounced taste of metal on back of your tongue we all love so much from BTBAM. The new effects used in the CD and by Tommy’s Korg’s are sweetly dissonant. Who thought the new technology of late could be used in such a beautiful flowing river we call their songs. With this CD, it has such variety to it. I think that is what I love the most. As my friend put it after a first time listen, “they’re changing the world of music.”
I listen to all their CD’s so often and get so into it, my friends will randomly say “Between the Buried and Me!” and I’ll start moshin n whylin out on site. Unfortunately, it turns out that I tend to break things most of the time I hear those 5 words and they’re music.. But hopefully they’ll listen to The Great Misdirect through my listening and realize it’s not just a bunch of ’screaming noise’ as they put it, and I won’t break as many things : P. So sit down, stand up please, lay down and drink this please for BTBAM’s The Great Misdirect!
I’d probably say Colors even though I’ve only listened to Alaska, Colors, and now The Great Misdirect. I know Colors basically like the back of my hand and can sing along to the guitars and vocals of every song on it. It was probably the first album to really make me appreciate this kind of music and opened my eyes to many other bands like it. I really was surprised that I had found a band like BTBAM that wrote their songs in a very different way than every other band I had ever listened to. They were definitely the first band I listened to that had 10 minute songs. Paul’s solos on White Walls and Ants of the Sky are some of the most beautiful solos I’ve ever heard from any artist. Hands down.
Dear MetalSucks.com,
I’m 6 years old and My favorite Between the Buried and Me CD is “Colors Live”. It is very good. It is good like the regular “Colors”, but better. It is better because they play the whole cd without stopping and they are really good at it. They don’t mess up or anything. They are like machines, but they have feelings and stuff.
They are good at their instruments. Paul, the louder guitar player, is very good. He plays a lot of fast parts without missing notes on “Colors Live”. He does a lot of cool “skeedle deedles” and “skiddley middleys”. I like to listen to him play his guitar. And Dustie is good at playing the back-up guitar. I don’t think Paul could play all those notes at the same time if Dustie was not there. I am happy Dustie showed up for that CD.
Blake is really good with his drums. He must exercise alot, because he plays the whole cd and only gets like one break and he never messes up. WOW!
Dan does a good job playing his bass guitar on “Colors Live”. I really like the part in the song “Viridian” when the guitar is quiet and Dan plays alone. It makes me sleepy, but in a good way.
Tommy is a good singer. I really like when he sings with his soft voice because he has a good voice. I like when he yells too, but it scares me sometimes. I do not know why he is mad. When I watch the DVD, I like to watch Tommy make his mad faces.
This is why “Colors Live” is my favorite Between the Buried and Me CD. I hope you like my letter. My dad just took me to Vintage Vinyl. Vintage Vinyl is a nice record store in St. Louis where I live. When I was there, I bought “The Great Misdirect”. I can’t wait to listen to it. Maybe it will be my new favorite BTBAM CD. Thanks MetalSucks.com for being a very good website most of the time.
Love,
Timmy
P.S. I wish that time you fake fired Gary Suarez was real. He uses big words and I don’t know what they mean.
I have to say colors. All of their albums are amazing including the new one, but colors was truely all around closest to musical perfection, I have to say that their ability to effectively use contrasting musical styles, tones, and moods all fitting together surpasses any other band that i listen to. I can listen to Colors and never be bored because it encompasses a mixed bag of brutality, jazziness, and amazing harmonies. No song is the same, therefore they all grab my attention in its own amazing way. Foam born is just orgasmicly metal. Son of Nothing is just sugar to my ears towards the end. The melodic bass solo of Viridian makes me jizz. The climactic point of White Walls is absolutely epic, using past motifs of all the preceding songs is pure musical genius. Just my two cents.
I’m going to go with “The Great Misdirect,” because there’s nothing like having an album whose last song takes up half a set at most shows.
im not gonna make this a uber long complicated thing but
alaska
it was the first album i had listened to that i found to be truly amazing
i was just amazed how it was physically possible to play the intro to alaska
it inspired me to play guitar
this band is truly one of the greatest bands ever
Colors is my favorite BTBAM record. Alaska totally blew my mind the first time I heard it and it still does. I will love that record forever, but I really think that Colors is just one of the best records I’ve ever heard. The songwriting is so masterful and the technicality is mindblowing. I try to work through the songbook and start a few things at like half-speed and then just sit there in awe that Paul and Dusty pull this stuff off. Blake puts such a fantastic feel behind every song while still making my jaw drop with his creativity and technicality as well. BTBAM is one of the most technically talented bands around as well as some of the best songwriters and just straight up musicians there are. I hope they continue making music until the end of time. Which coincidentally may be due to BTBAM playing a collection of time signatures so sickeningly awesome that they set off the apocalypse.
Colors. Why? It’s brilliant, epic, and the ending of White Walls is the closest thing I will ever get to an orgasm that I don’t give myself.
My favorite BTBAM album would have to be The Great Misdirect, coming out slightly ahead of Colors (which I have literally listened to over a hundred times straight through). I have absolutely LOVED this band since the moment I heard my first BTBAM song (Backwards Marathon, I believe); around the time Alaska had been released for a year. At the time, I was about 14 and liked all classic-rock/prog. BTBAM was THE band that got me into metal; they popped my metal-cherry and they are still on top (hehe, pun slightly intended).
Since I first listened to them, I’ve understood that they constantly push the limits of music on every song they’ve ever written- but it was in Alaska and Colors that they were able to break the limits of metal; and now they have done it again with The Great Misdirect as they have OBLITERATED the barriers of music as a whole, cementing themselves as a band that will always strive to make the most forward-thinking and revolutionary sounds that man will ever create.
Even though I’m biased towards everything they have ever done (I’m almost as big of a fanboy as MetalSucks), I can honestly say that this band has helped shape me into the person I am today. They’re ability to create masterful songs that affect me on a lyrical and musical level, alike, have practically revolutionized the Right Hemisphere of my brain… allowing me to consistently utter snide remarks towards those that like shitty music (especially that of the crabcore family).
They’ve also affected me as a musician as well:
I first started playing bass in the 6th grade with my middle school orchestra… getting my first bass guitar (Squire, lulz…) that Christmas was one of the best things that I’ve ever been blessed with. From the moment I heard Dan’s orgasmic bass lines I was hooked… Ever since I listened to him play that beautiful Spector I’ve been pushing myself to create licks that not only display the awesome potential of bass and distinguish myself from the rest of my metalcore band, but also blend the groove in seamlessly with the rest of music. In the same way, his playing and the group as a whole have helped me stick with double-bass in orchestra, where I have since graduated on to the honors-level symphony at school and hope to carry on into college.
Recently, a kid at my school tried to say that metal sucks (inb4 MetalSucks), especially in relation to bass- and that because I like metal, I must only play eighth notes on one note with a pic (this was before he actually heard my band). I then proceeded to play Viridian for him and he shut up… Two minutes and fifty-one seconds later he still silent…I’ll take that as an apology!
Colors Live
So I can hear applause for me getting shit on.
When I was 17 years old I took off to Alaska from California with a married couple who I had recently met and started playing music with. The wife had fallen in love with me but her husband and I had become very good friends by now. They decided to return to Alaska and I went with them. I got a job in a small town with ONE stop sign and met a wonderful girl. She surprised me our second day together with your album ALASKA which yes, was purchased in Alaska. It not only became my sole inspiration to achieve new musical greatness with my drumming but that girl and I have been together 4 and 1/2 years now and even though we have moved all over the place since, we still listen to Alaska weekly to keep us feeling at home. Thank you for providing us with an anchor. “Alaska – Between The Buried And Me” will always be ‘our thing’. Much love! -Nik
Colors.
The finest progressive music is easy to follow despite its many complexities. Take Tool, a band who use all kinds of weird syncopated rhythms and meters whilst sounding entirely organic; so organic, in fact, that I never even noticed the complexity of it all until I tried counting along one day. Colors works just in that way; it’s got so many notes and so many beats arranged in all kinds of ways over the course of an hour but it doesn’t take long at all to ‘learn the sounds’; to know exactly what note Paul, Dan or Dustie are about to hit, which drum Blake’s about to hit or what word Tommy is about to exude from his soul with the force of a Boeing-747 to the face.
It’s an album so accomplished, so meticulously put together and so well-timed in the world of metal music that no matter how good it is, The Great Misdirect can be nothing more than its victory lap.
It makes wolves blow up too.
Colors. Especially after watching you guys make love to your instruments playing four of the songs back to back.
It’s fucking beautiful, ’nuff fucking said.
Colors Live is, hands down, my favorite. That show was by far the greatest day of my life, and so worth the 12 HOUR wait in line to be in the very front of the stage. They say men can’t have multiple orgasms….WRONG. Anyone at that show can agree with me, but I got to sit and chat with my idol, Paul Waggoner before the show and that made my life complete.
The Great Misdirect easily turned into my favorite album ever since I listened to it. Unlike most people I wasn’t waiting to expect a heavy album. Another “Selkies” or “Alaska.” Ever since the Mirrors sampler got around I knew Between the Buried and Me did what few can do. They surpassed the genre of progressive metal and became simply: Between the Buried and Me. Just like Primus is Primus, King Crimson is King Crimson, Between the Buried and Me is just Between the Buried and Me now.
As for the actual music of the album, it’s phenomenal. Every element of music is not only incorporated into the album, but it shows their mastery in whatever it is. Whether it’s the hypnotic rhythmic intro in “Swim to the Moon” Or the fantastic folk vibe in “Desert of Song.” Most of all it is just great listen to. I was never bored listening to it.
Plus I love how Dan Briggs only needs to turn up to 2 1/2 to be too loud. A quick fact learned from the accompanying DVD.
Alaska, it was the first full album of theirs I ever heard. Love at first listen, after that I was hooked. Then I bought The Silent Circus and that was my favorite…and then I bought the self titled cd and that was my fav and then, and then….Seriously Alaska is a kick in the teeth to what some people call music nowadays and BTBAM has continued in that fashion I’m happy to be a fan.
My favorite BTBAM album and favorite album OF ALL TIME would have to be Colors. No other album properly fuels my need to hoe-down. Also, it makes masturbating easier when you’re listening to PURE FUCKING GENIUS.
My favorite album would have to be the self titled cd. This is the cd that made me absolutely love this band. It really seems to capture all the raw emotions that most bands strive for their entire careers in a debut cd. The production is just so harsh and brutal and adds to the dark undertones scored throughout. This is one of the few CDs out that from start to beginning will have you reeling and wondering what the fuck just happened. Seeing these songs live even adds to these thoughts as the crushing live tones and vocals elevate the experience. I think the hardest I’ve ever seen any of the band members rock out were during self titled songs. Dan during arsonist, Paul during use of a weapon, dustie during aspirations, and Blake and Tommy during more of myself to kill (which is funny as Blake is in a video of more of myself to kill from 2001.) Even with countless listens over the last 6 years or so this cd will never get old and seeing those songs live will always be the highlight of a show. Viva btbam.
The self titled BTBAM album (2002) really got to me as a kid in middle school and as I grew up and got older its almost like the sound and style matured as well. Then came high school and BTBAM was there through all bullshit. Honestly, there’s nothin better then a tad bit of weed and a good ol’ BTBAM album. Of course high school past and then came college. Older and a little more sober I picked up the newest of the albums, The Great Misdirect and that really had to be my favorite. Thanks BTBAM.
I’m going with Colors Live, simply because I haven’t had time to fully appreciate The Great Misdirect, and since Colors is my favorite album of theirs, but the live recording has a lot more power. BTBAM is, in my opinion, the forerunner in the evolution of metal, and I think TGM is a testament to the fact that with every album BTBAM releases, they refine their virtuosity.
Alaska, because I have AIDS.
Also – Colors, I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but Selkies: The Endless Obsession is one of the best songs of all time. OF ALL TIME!
Colors because I thought it was epic… especially when I saw it live in ‘07.
BTW I really like the vinyl of //ALASKA\\ because that is the album that got me into ya’ll…
BTBAM keep up the good work.
P.S. To all the other posters: LOL at all the ass kissing… Please keep your day job trolling at the BTBAM boards… Thanks.
:)
I believe Colors is my favorite album to date. I started off despising this band, even when I had the chance to see them on tour. I don’t know why, but when I popped Colors in for, I believe the third time, it really started to shine to me. Every note, lick, and passage just rang out as pure genius to me. The song off that album that really did it for me was “Informal Gluttony.” I believe my hunger to hear that track alone over and over again was only sated after my iTunes plays got up to the five-hundred range. Not wanting to kill my taste for that near-perfection of a song, I started paying more attention to the rest of the album, which ended up blowing me away beyond all expectations. I believe they named the song “White Walls” because, upon hearing it, a producer must have had jettisoned a few gallons of sperm through his pants and onto a nearby wall. I believe that entire album to be a perfect combination of technicality, melody, and harmony. The basslines that hold down the intense, melodic riffing on songs like “Prequel to the Sequel” are tastefully variant from the riffs they help carry, but are no less technical. I believe this album has one of the most pure, well-thought fusions of jazz and death metal, to date.
One thing that really struck me, however, was the album art. The simple style of the city somewhat reminded me of my father’s drawings during my childhood. I suppose that some subconscious link to like the album, purely based on that connection, was there; but I believed the musical mastery and the beautifully flowing composition of each song truly made “colors” eponymous with “masterpiece.”
nateman61392@yahoo.com
colors. btbam trancended anyhting you could have called heavy music withthat album. i mean come on theres a friggin hoedown!!!! but in al seriousness. the combined talent of these musicians will never stop surprising or enlightening the metal scene. bands like btbam changed what it meant to be a fan of heavy music. no longer are we restricted to camo shorts and black tees. no longer must we verse-chorus-verse-chorus chug chug tweeak our way through existence. the simple fact that the powerful thundering growl comes out of tommy, not a big person by any standard, almost shows the true beast behind the majesty of this band. btbam have made music more enjoyable for me on a daily basis, and with people like them , mish mansoor, and tosin abasi, metal will only better from here on out. oh and b/c when i bought it my friends were all doing acid that night so i let them borrow it and i think i changed their lives forever. not to mention they named it COLORS. thats wither the most pretentious, or most genius thing to name an album ever. they own nuff said.
Colors is the best album I’ve ever heard. I love just siting and listening to it from front to back. It makes me feel better every time I listen to it no matter what shit i am going through. It is beautiful in every essence, and thanks for writing this music. brobst23@gmail.com
Okay so Between the Buried and Me is a the greatest band on the planet right now. Fact. SO with that said this will be a strictly objective review. Between the Buried and Me are genreless.You cannot pigeonhole this.
With the release of their new album Colors, Between the Buried and Me toured relentlessly playing the album as it was recorded in its entirety, night after night to perfection. A concept albumbetween-the-buried-and-me-colors that you cannot figure out. Going from German polka music to black metal then right into uplifting melodic epicness so effortlessly.
It doesn’t sound cheesy and lame like all that british prog trash that came out in the 70’s yet that’s where its roots clearly lie. That and the American post hardcore movement. All the guys in the band are incredible musicians, technically unbelievable and the songs are on a par with their technicallity.
Looking like two emo kids, two metalheads and a hippie and 4/5ths of the band being vegan you begin to wander how the hell they met each other and if this is the strangest thing you’ve ever heard of in music. Well anyway the DVD is perfect. It’s not raw and has definitely had some post production on it but who’s over analysing? It sounds amazing.
Album opener Foam Born (A) The Backtrack gives you time to breathe and then its relentless till the end. They are on fire. Going in and out of moods, time signatures, keys ,whatever like they’re tying their shoelaces. Sun of nothing, Prequel to the Sequel, Ants of the sky are beautiful, disgusting, heavy, insanely fast and painstakingly slow all at once. Then the bass solo over the unisexual tension chords (haha I made that up, don’t write that down in a theory test) which leads into the album and show closer makes me happy and sad at the same time. They close with White Walls as it is on the album and as it should be. One the most incredible pieces of music I have ever heard. There’s a part close to the end where Vocalist Tommy Rogers repeats the lines ”Get out of this closed off circle” over chords that make you want to rip your bosses face off and it gives me goose bumps every time. That’s what they are doing. This is more than an album and it’s bigger than the people in the band.
A little boy once said, I want music that means something.
Little did he know, that this wish was large and daunting.
Around the time of his adult-hood, he began to explore.
So he stumbled upon a band, and couldn’t ask for anything more.
Killing him inside, he couldn’t hold it in!
Alaska is my favorite album! (Fin)
P.S. Pay attention to details. ;)
I love colors. Remember pink floyds dark side of the moon. Remember when you had to listen to both those albums the entire way through with out interruption to get the full amazing effect, and if you didn’t you were really missing out. And yes i did just compare btbam to floyd. and yes btbam is my favorite band ever. They are honestly the only band that HAS GIVEN ME A BONER.
When i first got colors my friend and i stared at a speaker and smiled with out mouths wide open for over an hour. That album is hands down the best album i have ever heard using my ears ever in the history of my life and the history of sound including that time electricity didnt exist but even then btbam would have played white walls acoustically and still would have fucking melted beethoven face off or rocked mozart cock to the moon with how awesome they are omg this is a long sentence.
Two nights ago, at midnight of the release date, was my first experience with The Great Misdirect. Me being a douchebag with a twitter, the second i got the tweet about the early release date, I bought the CD as soon as it was available. At that time, i sealed myself in my room, laid down on my bed, put on the CD, and proceeded to “straight-edge trip”.
Being edge ill admit to not knowing what an acid trip might entail, but I never quite have (and maybe never will again) experience the things i pictured with my eyes closed, listening to Paul’s spacey solo in obfuscation and twirling around in a purple globe going down a light tunnel, or the feeling of being trapped in an expansive machine during Fossil Genera. The Percussion intro to Swim to the Moon for some reason put me on a waterfall, and each time a bell rung, a different color light illuminated blue rocks.
While Colors may be one of my favorite musical pieces of all time, The Great Misdirect, for being one of the most theatrical auditory experiences I’ve ever had, is granted the title as one of my favorite ever pieces of ART.
But Beyonce had the best video of all time.
OF ALL TIME.
Yo All Other Music Ever Made, I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but I just wanted to say that The Great Misdirect is the best album of all time- Of all time!
Wow… when I clicked refresh I saw what the guy above me posted…
That wasn’t there before…
oh, and if MS cares- the first word of my email actually ends with an “n”, not an “m”…
I can’t pick an album, every single one takes me places more fully than anything else in metal. I won’t add anything because this band’s constant, genuine emotion is inspiring and I’ll keep it genuine here with the one thought about BTBAM that never goes away for me.
b-t-fucking-bam
between the buried and me
need seven haikus
colors is the best
each note is cleverly planned
it’s one rockin’ song
the great misdiect
is an amazing album
i must listen more
alaska is cool
some songs better than others
sarah palin, meh
the silent circus
definitely a classic
too much metalcore
between the buried and me
have an awesome self titled
a great start for them
the anatomy
of… has some cool cover songs
i cheated on that
/contest
Because Between the Buried and Me fucking rapes all other bands, plus their music is so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes.
I would have to say Colors, simply because I listened to the whole thing once while taking a shit, and it was the most metal shit ever. I pretty sure it was black. Had to flush twice to keep it away from innocent bystanders.
I’d have to go with Silent Circus, simply due to the fact that it basically shaped my metal musical tastes to this very day. I first listened to it when I was a sophomore in high school, and couldn’t stop. I am now a sophomore in College, and listen to all of your material regularly. The evolution over the years is simply amazing. So refined. It’s like witnessing and hearing the American dream….but much more brutal.
My favorite album is obviously your self-titled. I mean, I’ve been a fan of you guys for about 10, maybe 11 years? (Yes, I do know you haven’t been BTBAM that long but I’m a stalker ;]…just kidding) I’ve been to every single one of your shows and stopped going to them when you started your Alaska tour and on. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the music on all your albums, it’s just your fans are either too damn serious, really awkward, or they just like Colors. But not me, I’m one of them self-titled boys. I used to “hardcore dance” at your shows, stare at Paul while he soloed, and wondered where Dan, Blake, and that other guy were. It was awesome. I knew all your songs and got a couple mic grabs! Thanks Tommy! But yeah, the self-titled definitely my favorite. Not because of the kick-ass music or anything, just because Colors fans scare me.
Its hard for me to say which one is my favorite album. But I do know that they outdid themselves(and everyone) with The Great Misdirect, just when I thought to myself; How are they going to top Colors? Well, I think they just did, even with the first listen all the way through. Each album gets better and better although there is still is a place in my heart for Silent Circus and Alaska. The Great Misdirect should get album of the year.
‘Colors’ because I’m colour blind.
Colors, because it was so incredibly unexpected and it’s still the most creative album I have ever heard.
My favorite album from BTBAM would have to be the cover album “The anatomy is.” I consider this one to be my favorite of all because, all musicians sometimes lose track of where we came from as musicians and BTBAM created a whole entire cover album for just influencial artists. Amazing covers! Don’t get me wrong; BTBAM makes amazing originals, but honestly, where the hell would our music come from without other influencial musicians? All of us are linked through music although styles vary, but musicians often get cocky on how much better they sound than others. Not BTBAM! You guys rock hard and think big!
Thighpads@gmail.com
Colors for sure is my favorite. My friend introduced me to BTBAM right after the colors live DVD came out, he was at the filming. I watched it for the first time on a fuckinghuge-inch TV right after burning a fat blunt. My ears when into a full on orgasm during the first 2 minutes of Informal Gluttony and continued to have my mind blown throughout the rest of the album. I had never listened to the studio version of Colors until about 4 or 5 months after listening to Colors Live over and over and over again. It was so awesome listening to the studio version because of the layering of vocals and guitars that was not possible live, plus all the retards yelling and screaming during Viridian weren’t in the studio version and that was nice. It was almost like listening to the album for the first time again because I was hearing so many more sounds that weren’t in the Colors Live CD. What I loved most about Colors was the perfect use of many different genres of music in one album. Unfuckingreal. Colors also skyrocketed my guitar playing skills by me learning how to play much of the album. I am twice the guitarist I was before I started listening to Colors. By the way, if any of the band members actually read this, I know the asian guy you fucked with on the Colors Live CD and he was pissed you did it to him. However, he was wearing that ridiculous outfit to get on the DVD so he had it coming.
Colors is by far my favorite BTBAM album, for many reasons, some of which are listed below:
-like Bill Brasky (think saturday night live…….), Blake Richardson is an eight foot tall beast man who showers in vodka and feeds his babies shrimp scampiiiiii.
-I’ve never heard such tight cohesive playing on any album as I did on Colors (both studio and live versions).
-I would bet my hard earned $$ that Blake Richardson believes it’s not butter.
- Prequel to the Sequel features what it to me, the most epic intro ever composed, and that has NOTHING to do w/ that dumbass rock band game.
-Blake Richardson’s drumming is absolutely astonishing. His fills fill me with joy.
-Never before have musical genres been so creatively or cleanly merged together as they were on White Walls, Viridian, P2tS, and pretty much every song!! I mean, its not uncommon to have adventurous mixtures displayed on a few songs on an album, but all of Colors pulled it off masterfully.
-The live version of colors truly put you right in the audience as did the dvd. Just listening to it, I could not tell the difference between the studio and live albums. Sign of an epic sound right there.
I could go on all day, but I think y’all be gettin the point.
Blake Richardson for prez.
I must say that Alaska is still my favorite BTBAM album of all time. Don’t get me wrong, I love Colors as much as anything, and I think the new album is epic, but Alaska is the essence of Between the Buried and Me. The album gets off to a good heavy start with All Bodies, Alaska, and Croakies, which are followed by the legendary song, Selkies. After a calm interlude, the metal is back in Backwards Marathon, which goes from thick, heavy riffs to a haunting and beautiful interlude. This is followed by Medicine Wheel, possibly the most mesmerizing instrumental song ever. The Primer and Autodidact are each memorable songs, and Laser Speed bring Alaska to a fitting ending.
All of the elements that define Between the Buried and Me are present in Alaska. For me personally, when I think of BTBAM, I think of this:
Keeper of the stars, I hope to never find
We are just mortal souls left to die
Keep writing, Keep dreaming!
This is human life at its best….
You can learn how to live, breathe…
We will find art again!
2005, Welcome to Perfection
Prescribe me, indulge me,
You have won.
Days like today
Mordecai flies down on this ship
and stares me in the eyes
Loser
Losing
Lost
This is the story of Alaska.
C O L O R S cause i bought it, then i went to my house, prepared my audio system, got myself super high then i push play, i was really excited and it was fucking amazing i had this brutal experience cause is a masterpiece an album so complete it has all this fellings it’s was so much for me i couldn’t handle it when it finished, i was hiperamazed… so incredible that i had to do it again, so i got high and enjoy it again four fucking times…
The Great Misdirect. Just so you could grasp how fucking great this album is…. I would fucking do a gay scene with Ron Jeremy and do the gayest shit just to get that album again. To me, this album is a mix of all of your album’s made into one, in other words: E P I C.
I thank all of BTBAM for the great music and keep them cumming with your music (Clever huh?)
Cesar Adames
Now, this is a story all about how
My life got destructo spun upside down
And I’d like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I became the slave of a band called BTBAM
In North Carolina born and raised
In the studio was where they spent most of their days
Rockin’ out with a relax tat and not bein’ lame
And all checkin’ some box scores while watchin’ the game
When a couple of guys
Who were up to no good
Released the album “Colors” in my neighborhood
I blasted it really loud and my mom got scared
She said ‘foam born?! you were hospital born!”
I floated toward the sun and when it came near
A spaceman they say I am yeah that’s my career
Suddenly I was doin’ the Hoedown
And I thought ‘Ants of the Sky? – damn right I can fly!”‘
White walls came up around 7 or 8
And I yelled to my homies ‘Yo this song is insane!”
The keyboard at the end took me away
And immediately I just had to replay
The album that could not have been better made
mleroy@gmail.com
LOL.. How could the fresh prince rap NOT win?!?!?
The self-titled was the best album because the lyrics to the song More of Myself to Kill, even simply the title of that song, expresses the axiom that all living creatures, in essence, are one with the collective consciousness that animates, composes, and transcends all physical forms.
Colors. It is so dense and epic and when the heavy part comes in at the beginning of the album… It’s on!
gmhendler@carolina.rr.com
Alaska. I listened to it on the train home
Colors is my favorite album, because if you stare at the buildings in the bottom right long enough (upside down), you can see Jesus giving you the finger.
How long have you been staring at it?
The Anatomy Of, cause I didn’t have to listen to them trying to make music of their own.
Hahaha only kidding.
But really, I feel that this new album is probably my favorite of theirs besides the ending. I felt like in Colors they unlocked their potential to write an epic, but stuck to musical grounds. In the Great Misdirect, I feel like they used their opus writing techniques and wrote a story instead of a musical piece. I feel like there are different emotions that run wild during parts of this album and i feel as if I could make a movie to it. That is why I like this album most.
To be honest, I had no clue who you guys were about a month or two ago, but when my friends invited me to see you in concert, I didn’t feel like passing the opportunity to see a band like you guys up. (I was never really into your type of music) So, I saw you guys live in Philly, and quite honestly, I was blown away. I didn’t know any of your songs, anything about any of you, but just being there and listening to you play was amazing. Then I got to shake Paul’s hand and was able to say a few words to Tommy, and I got to tell you, you guys are by far the most humble musicians I’ve met in a while. Just wanted to say that.
There is no witty or fun way for me to say my favorite album, but I really enjoy Colors. (That’s the album I’ve been listening to the most) I just love the musicality of your music, and my favorite song is Sun for Nothing just because you have the quirky break down in the middle that just makes me smile. But then I was able to sit down and listen to The Great Misdirect with my friends who introduced me into you, and now it’s hard for me to say what album truly is my favorite. Your music just holds a lot of passion and personality that’s hard to miss and I have to say I have a shit load of fun rocking out to your music in my car. Also, it’s pretty fun to see people’s reactions to me listening to your music. So, to wrap things up, Colors would be my favorite album, just because that is what I listened to first, and that set the grounds for me…but as I keep listening to The Great Misdirect, it’s quickly becoming close to my favorite.
So basically I just want to say, keep up the absolutely amazing music guys, and I will love to see you any other time you are near my hometown. Thanks guys!
Email: kay.whis@yahoo.com
My favorite BTBAM album is Colors….because its awesome…thats it just awesome
my favorite album is the great misdirect its so hard to choose but they seem to get better and wierder every time i love it, always find a new way to shred faees
COLORS! That entire album tickles my pickle. Ants Of The Sky is amazing with its Blues, Jazz, and Bluegrass sections. But going from Viridian to White Walls takes the cake!
How could I possibly pick a favorite? They’re all awesome in their own way.
To hear a band progress through each album they put out is a truly incredible thing. And The Anatomy Of is excellent too. I can say my mom has experienced BTBAM because of their Bicycle Race cover, and then there’s Kickstart my Heart for my dad.
When asked the question of which Between the Buried and Me album is my favorite, I cannot answer It is not a question of which album is better, but rather how the last continues the story from the last chapter and how well each comments on the other. They have come a long way from Alaska but still are holding true to much of their roots. Until this point I truly believed that Colors was my favorite chapter in the BTBAM story; but as I currently “Swim to the moon” the only conclusion I can come to is that these gents are an unstoppable machine of magnetic musical magicianry. And as the breakdown destroys my face in the fourteenth minute I am only reminded of the same power that the breakdown held in “White Walls”. I hope this story never ends. Thanks guys. Matthew
Alaska is my favorite album, it has the perfect balance of harsh bluntness, and melodic guitar riffs. But its mostly my favorite because I lost my virginity while it was playing in the room, it reminds me of happier times. “2005 welcome to perfection… Prescribe me, indulge me… You have won.” Then I exploded. Lmao.
Alaska has to be my favorite hands down. Being as it was the first BTBAM album I purchased, I connected with it the most. Immediately after buying alaska, I went on a three-day backpacking trip into the Ochoco mountains where the only things I had were my gear and my cd player loaded with alaska. The first day was sunny and beautiful, not a cloud in the sky. I awoke on the second day determined to hike another 3 miles in to a place called Twin Pillars. I exited my tent to another fantastic warm day in the wilderness. I packed a smaller day pack and went on my way, with the stylings of Between the buried and me to guide me down the path mostly blocked by downed trees. It took the better part of 45 minutes to get to the base of what turned out to be an entirely shale mountain. I figured that the best way to see the surrounding landscape, I should climb to the top. By this time, clouds had moved in and it had begun to drizzle a bit. Upon reaching the top, it began to thunder and lightning at nearly the same time Backwards Marathon started to play. The combination of such a thundering introduction and the greatness of the weather at the time was quite moving. Not to mention the blatant realization I had later in the song that it was in fact raining and I had to climb all the way back down, without getting struck by lightning and without getting to wet. That was the truly the moment I knew I would be a lifelong fan.
colors. it crossed so many boundaries of what music can achieve. its a roller coaster through all sorts of genres of music. its impossible not to respect this album because everyone can at least appreciate some aspect of it. i never thought bluegrass could be mixed in with heavy metal. -We must get out of this closed off circle we are part of.
I am a person that loves to binge on music from time to time. It was early 2008, I was fed up with my metal collection (still had a bunch of nu-metal on my iPod at the time) I had had enough. Went to top 10 lists of 2007, to find Colors and DEP’s Ire Works. Promptly downloaded both and at that point I became a man (I was 16 at the time).
I began to get acne during Foam Born (B), I began to grow a shitty ratstache during Ants In The Sky, and my balls dropped to the tune of White Walls.
I credit BTBAM’s Colors to turning me into a man (and yes, I bought the disk, it was hard, because after turning into a man, I still looked like a scraggly fuck.)
the silent circus is the best album because the songs are good and i enjoy listening to them. I like most of the songs on s/t but the vocals are a little too hardcore/guttural and colors/the great misdirect have a lot of intermittent parts that are almost unlistenable while the other half is amazing. their discography is kind of like someone’s sex life… the first album is like a virgin so the sex (music) seems awesome but it gets better and their second two albums are like when you start fucking all the time and you’re good at it and it rules… but by the time the fourth album comes around the music got too boring for the band and now they’re doing the equivalent of 36 year old men having bestiality orgies with period blood squirting everywhere and greased-up midgets in diapers tickling their balls. The first three songs on The Great Misdirect are good (especially the horse neigh) but the last three songs are like if you were to be at that orgy and you come down off the ecstasy you took and realize that you shouldn’t be there. or something like that
I pooped my pants when I heard Colors. Correction: I poop my pants when I hear Colors. Therefor, it has to be my favorite album, AS OF NOW. I think a favorite album never stays around forever, for me, my favorite songs, albums, etc. change alot within the band. It took me a long time to understand Colors in its entirety. studying every riff, fill, groove, and melody is like playing a board game to me, except it never gets boring.. like monopoly. Unless its at McDonalds, whichhhhh gets sort of aggravating at times, because im like, one friggen peice away from winning every single prize available, but then again, listening to Colors did aggravate me a tad, because it took quite a while to remember and know all the things I do now. Thats why The Great Misdirect isnt my favorite album YET. Its just too soon. In about 2, 3 months, it probably will be my favorite album. And thats about all. P.S. Tommy: get some new JR shirts already! [=
For real Tommy…..lets get the JR collection 3 already!!!! I’ll buy EVERYTHING!
Colors.
It’s simply one of the most amazing albums ever created. It’s PERFECT. It’s a metal-infused version of Pink Floyd’s “Animals”…Which happens to be my favorite record of all-time.
Ok, so I was browsing on Myspace because I literally had nothing else going on, I was on some Progressive metal bands’ page, I dunno what they were called, probably not even very big. I think they’re called Opeth or something. So yeah, from their page I then found some band called Between The Buried And Me. I glanced at their display picture and I thought a few of the band members had Down’s syndrome which didn’t really suprise me cos it’s metal. I listened to a song called White Walls and it was fucking long but it was phenomenal. I went out and bought this CD called ‘Colours_Live’ and it was the first album I bought rather than downloaded because I thought I’d show a little respect to this band (whom now, since I got past the Down Syndromey, Progressivey look, I think, are a bunch of very good looking men). Firstly, the album art was inspirational. I sat there for a good 10 minutes after sliding the CD case out of the beautifully photoshopped front cover and realised that the picture on the CD case WASN’T upside down! Priceless. I plugged the black disc with a weird pattern filled with a spectrum of colours into my laptop. Ear sex doesn’t suffice in defining this collaboration of technical ability. Some day this album will be worth millions and people will pay £100 to see them live because it is such an exquisite piece of work. So go see Between The Buried And Me whilst they are cheap. In fact, aliens will probably pick up signals of their music and like, stop by Earth and shit and just jam to the groove. I literally want to sit inside the music of ‘Colours_Live’ and live there. Or just swim in it all day until I shrivel up into a colourful ballsack. I wouldn’t mind dying from the result of a spontaneous combustion caused by the sounds. If you don’t listen to this album, you won’t ever lose your virginity. You haven’t had sex until you’ve heard ‘Colours_Live’.
its COLORS. not COLOURS.
Good point. Well we spell it colour, but I guess since the band are American…
Colors is my favorite BTBAM album because it was the most fun to figure out/learn/play on guitar and bass. It has had the most influence on my guitar abilities and style out of perhaps everything I’ve listened to, aside from maybe The Faceless. I kind of wish I knew how to play drums just so i could figure out all of the crazy shit that goes on in this cd. I’m sure I’ll enjoy doing the same with The Great Misdirect, but I haven’t had the opportunity to buy it yet because I’m broke.
also, fuck sailboats.
One of the hardest questions, hands down. I’ve already typed out an answer for each album and erased them. I’m going to go with the S/T though. It’s a damn classic album, and (I think) the last time they played the Soap Box in Wilmington they asked for requests, met with a bunch of garbled song titles, and as it died down I yelled out “FIRE FOR A DRY MOUTH!”. Tommy grabs the mic and says “This is ‘Fire for a Dry Mouth’. Tiiiight. I love that song.
Colors, well because it caused me to go to rehab. As soon as I heard it I couldn’t stop listening to it. I began to zone out my friends and family. I got suspended from school because we aren’t allowed to listen to music there and i refused to stop listening to it.So my parents decided to send me to rehab. I told them it was perfectly normal and even let them listen to it. But they just called it satan music. Once I went to rehab it took me a couple of months to remove my headphones from my head. And when they did I would freak out. Just to calm me down they would play me old BTBAM albums. Eventually I was able to stop listening to BTBAM for at least an hour. Now I’m becoming addicted to The Great Misdirect, I think if I won this contest I’d be able to slow down on the BTBAM and start creating my own music for others to become addicted to.
I think colors is the best display of BTBAMS’ musical talent and technicality. I’m agreeing with Mike Portnoy of dream theater saying it’s the best album of 2007. Hell, I even think that it’s one of the best albums I’ve ever heard. The transitions from song to song are impeccable and perfect. I can’t think of anything negative about Colors and I don’t think I ever will. I read the lyrics to every song and thought they were hilarious…. but they had meaning, and that bewildered me. This album is the equilibrium of prog and death metal. I want to see any band EVER to try and top Colors. impossible. I’ve listened to every BTBAM album at least five times (TGM about 3), and I think that TGM comes in at a close second and Alaska third. Nothing can ever beat Colors. It sounds like red october =P
My favorite album is The Silent Circus because it was written by Between the Buried and Me. Also, my child was conceived during “Destructo Spin” because I ROFLcoptered my wife during that song. That means that Between the Buried and Me are the parents of my unborn child.
I’m gonna have to say Colors. it’s odd being the only person in my school, even though it’s tiny, that likes prog music. I went from Dream Theater to Opeth, then BTBAM to bands in the more hardcore area. Colors expanded my musical tastes from just prog to LOADS more. (I had even planned on going to the Colors_LIVE filming, but one of my friends decided at the last minute that they weren’t very familiar with your music, so I ended up without a ride. They went a couple of weeks ago, actually, and didn’t even ask me to go this time around. lol. I SWEAR I WILL SEE YOU LIVE ONE DAY!)
but back to Colors. pretty/proggy clean sections to hardcore/crazy assaults are what really made me fall in love with the band. the diversity of everything, and how well written it is.. just blew my mind. also, as a guitarist, it challenged me when I attempted to learn stuff like Sun of Nothing and Prequel to the Sequel (which I failed miserably at, lol).
I go through phases where I listen to the band for a month straight, then hardly at all. I’m on another one of those kicks, but it’s JUST you guys.
Although I can’t really explain why, your music (and Colors especially) has really affected my life.
Colors, nothing can ever top the country breakdown.
My favorite album is Colors. Everything merges together like the full spectrum of colors. In every other album I’ve ever listened to I think of one color for the whole album, or one distinct one for each individual song. Sure, every BTBAM album has great technicality and a wide range of influences, but Colors flows the best and has the best riffs to support it. I also love the way it opens and closes with solely piano. I still haven’t heard all of The Great Misdirect yet, so maybe my favorite will change.
Colors; don’t have to drink to go crazy then.
I beleive the conceptual aspect of The Great Misdirect makes it come short in after Colors, and I beleive it has as much if not more depth than Colors, lyrically, and with what they tried to do style wise, yet still keeping the old Between the Buried and Me style we’ve all come to know and love. And c’mon. There’s a horse whinny.
my favorite BTBAM album is Alaska, because my girlfriend said so.
Colours….the journey…the sheer roller coaster that one is thrown into when the humble little human being innocently presses play and is subsequently thrown into a sea of emotions, tossing and turning, washing them away to a far away land in which every note seems to ring perfection.
Or something like that.
Although I luckily remained quite secure in my seat the first time I pressed play on my battered, scratched and partially smashed iPod (and quite dry actually, which is rather fortunate, because I am told that that particular sea that many are soaked in is rather wet), I did notice immediately, that extraordinary nature of this new album. From the soft and suggestive introduction to the mind blowing Decade Of Statues, a heavy yet beautiful sound was evident.
I pressed menu, twice, then scrolled down to another band. It was not until around a week later, when I was sitting in a waiting room suffering from a broken finger, that those words came floating into my mind. “…I’ll just keep waiting…you’ll just keep waiting…” As soon as I got home I clumsily placed the CD into my player, and listened to it in it’s whole, glorious entirety.
Since then, they have become an obsession. Before Colours, I was already very familiar with the band, having “The Silent Circus” and “Alaska”, two amazing albums. But they were always just another good band in my collection, and I had never fully explored the depth that all the albums, and the band themselves, contain. Living in Australia, it is not often that bands come through, especially through the rural areas. But, they did. Unfortunately they couldn’t play Colours right through, but they did play an amazing set with new and old, and the vivid memories that run through my mind are without a doubt the best I have. Meeting the band, front row, Tommy screaming away in my face, Paul playing the White Walls solo in my face as well, me looking like a little schoolgirl at a Brittany Spears concert while he did so, tears in my eyes. Thank you Between the Buried and Me, for adding an escape to my life. Thank you for adding another part of my life in which I can go to, and let the rest of the world float away.
I strayed from the question horribly there, and I bored anyone who actually read this to tears, but I am not saying sorry! COLOURS! Colours is my favourite album, although very, very narrowly.
:)
The silent circus. The first btbam song I ever heard was Mordecai and a friend and I had the song on a mixtape. He showed me the song and because of the starting, I was laughing so hard that we kept playing the song over and over again, sometimes just after a few seconds to hear the drums and cymbal ting. after that I actually listened to the record and fell in love with everything on it. every record after has been phenomenal but the silent circus will always live in infamy for me.
Colors is definitely my favorite. The album is like one grand opus of amazing! Im a big fan of progressive/multi-genre/complex music that is done tastefully and this album fills in all of those requirements. There are so many different styles it goes through and its so creative and complex but yet catchy at the same time. The title fits it perfectly… “A mesh of all sorts of colors.” Also, i associate this album with many a fun, drunken night with my friends. about a year ago, we used to just put this album on repeat through the night of a party or small get togethers and i just associate with that time in my recent life. also i remember it catching the attention of people who didnt even listen to metal and them saying “holy shit! these guys are awesome who is this?!” i love introducing good, new music to people and this album is a great start for almost any fan of music. no matter what genre.
The Great misdirect because, it lead me to believe that i have become propelled onto planet BTBAM, where btbam’s progressive metal leaves me in utter amazement. Where the radio stops tuning and the static is forbidden The accumulation of bullshit radio friendly songs become devastated as an album so greatly written and composed becomes the new government. My survival skills were lost once i heard the album handed down by the metal god’s straight in my palms. Not really, I bought the deluxe edition at a local hot topic. From that point on I swam to planet btbam’s moon. Here we’re awake and the silence is broken by btbam’s astonishing ways of musical attainment.
I love you btbam, you’ve changed my life!
Colors, well because it caused me to go to rehab. As soon as I heard it I couldn’t stop listening to it. I began to zone out my friends and family. I got suspended from school because we aren’t allowed to listen to music there and i refused to stop listening to it.So my parents decided to send me to rehab. I told them it was perfectly normal and even let them listen to it. But they just called it satan music. Once I went to rehab it took me a couple of months to remove my headphones from my head. And when they did I would freak out. Just to calm me down they would play me old BTBAM albums. Eventually I was able to stop listening to BTBAM for at least an hour. Now I’m becoming addicted to The Great Misdirect, I think if I won this contest I’d be able to slow down on the BTBAM and start creating my own music for others to become addicted to.
Email:llamatyler93@hotmail.com
colors because listening to it high is the best decision ive ever made, plus listening to it unhigh has stimulated tremendous musical growth.
Even though all of their albums are heavenly, I’m going to have to say “The Silent Circus.” I distinctly remember listening to “Camilla Rhodes” some time ago, and I started going into convulsions, and suddenly an alien appeared, revived me, and informed me that I was his brother from a distant galaxy. He told me to look in my attic for a clue to his unbelievable tale, and there I saw a space pod. I confronted my “parents” about this, and at that moment, they transformed into giant Megazords and flew away. Thank you BTBAM for being apart of my true awakening in this stupid planet.
/contest u win
Wow… brilliant…
That’s a very stupid answer
Man, I’m getting really tired of Zack. I’m listening to Anatomy of right now, Blackened, and you all win. Metallica is nothing compared to BTBAM. Their best album doesn’t compare to your worst album. If you had a worst album, you don’t though. All of BTBAMs albums are fucking, fucking amazing. There was one time i got lost in the woods in the middle of the night with three dudes in a river. I was scared that i wouldn’t hear colors ever again, unless i went to heaven, then i could hear it anytime i wanted. It was a straight cliff on either side of the river bank and one of us had a cell phone, the police tracked the gps on the phone, They called in fire and rescue and we repelled up the mountain, except for chip, a 350 pound guy wearing flip flops, they brought in a boat for him. They gave me gatorade at the top of the cliff. As soon as i got home i listened to colors all the way through. I guess i should have showered first, because my entire body was covered in poison ivy for the next month. Good times. I am now listening to kickstart my heart by BTBAM, and it is also much better than the original. I think every song on the album is better than the original no joke. Territory is fucking amazing as balls. The Great misdirect is my favorite album. No wait, the self titled is. Wait no, Alaska is. Or colors. Or the Silent circus. It’s all so good. The only thing in my itunes library is BTBAM and van halen’s greatest hits. I don’t ever listen to van halen on there because BTBAM is on there. The man land could be one of the greatest songs ever written(?). Haha, that was amazing. Hidden tracks are the best. It’s funny that the song with the hidden track on it isn’t as long as white walls. Now i am listening to Us and Them by BTBAM. Instead of laser floyd they should have laser BAM. That would probably make me orgasm.
colors is probably my favorite because I like the melody rather than the chuggy riffs, like obfuscation off the great misdirect, amazing song. although colors is my favorite, the great misdirect is obviously packed with the most talent you guys have ever shown. plus the arrows are easy to carve out of soap ;)
Alaska, simple because in my all time favorite song, the primer, the lyrics even say “welcome to perfection”
and that it is perfection. i have seen them live a half dozen times and each time it was like it was the first. knock out performance that no band could follow and/or the ultimate finale to the night.
my favorite album is alaska.
i used to have sex to that album literally every day and it would make me feel like a king. now these days i just get drunk in my basement and blast this album and get a boner. im not sure if i get a boner because of the sheer beautiful metal god sent love, or just from the memories of so much god damn beautiful unprotected sex. a rock and roll boner? every song on the album just does it for me. i remember the first time i saw them in philli at the unitarian church with dillinger and horse the band. one of the best shows i have been to.
im broke, unemployed, living in my parents basement, but yet still unbelievably happy because of metal records like this one. i am trying to do my part by writing the best music to my ability, and that bass would fucking help a fuck load.
cheers to tthis glorious god damn website, and keep the metal alive.
and just a side note, its risky to trip while listening to this album.. it literally blows your mind. i closed my eyes and put on this record, and i actually thoguht i was on a roller coaster. it was crazy
im drunk and not sure what im talking about anymore. i fucking love you all.
colors is without a doubt the best btbam album, if not THE best album of all the time.
when colors first walked into my earholes, i was stunned :|
i was unaware that power metal/straight brutal riffs/blues/jazz/country could all exist in the same song.
it’s perfect
thank you btbam, you intelligent assholes
Right now, I’m actually going to go with The Great Misdirect, but only because I’m currently listening to it right now and I hyped it up like crazy. I actually skipped my 3rd and 4th period to go get the album, and I listened to it all through lunch! It’s outstanding!
Favorite album of all time is definitely Alaska. It’s not only my favorite BTBAM album, but it’s my favorite album of ALL TIME.
I would have to say Colors. Colors is my favorite BTBAM album because it flows very smoothly, it balances clean and distorted parts very well, and it is just simply, epic as fuck. The Backtrack is one of the greatest album openers I’ve ever heard, and White Walls, is the best way to end an album. And of course all the other songs in the middle of album make the album unique, but I think just the beginning and ending itself make it the best BTBAM album.
A favourite? I can’t possibly decide yet, as I’ve only listened to them all 100 times through. I will say, though, that they’ve gotten progressively better. Pun intended.
My favorite BTBAM album is Alaska. It turned out to be the masterpiece that I was not ready for at all. I had already picked up the bass and was inked with the btbam logo (on my neck for the world to see) after becoming addicted to The Silent Circus, that when I was slapped in the face with Alaska, I pretty much had a seizure and felt complete. It’s the epic, raw love of my life that means so much to me, it was the biggest and best step forward in btbam history.
Camilla__rhodes@hotmail.com
i would probably have to say my favorite cd outta my btbam collection is the silent circus.. that cd changed my life for the better. everything about that cd is mindblowing… i mean everything from the technical music structure to the stories/meaning behind each song. the silent circus is also my bands driving cd when we have to leave town for our shows. i own every cd and the silent circus opened my mind to so many things. i wouldnt be who i am today if it wasnt for you guys. thank you guys for being awesome:)
colors. because it truly showed me their range of playing and its a great way to drown out the nagging of my girlfriend. thanks for an hour long cd btbam
The Great Misdirect is my new favorite Between the Buried and Me album. Before TGM came out it was Colors. Although I love their older and more in-your-face brutal albums, The Great Misdirect clearly showcases the immense amount of knowledge in theory and musicianship that the band has as Colors did before that. An album this good and this complex only comes along once every couple generations.
When one listens to TGM, one would hear what sounds like a full score rather than a few guitar tabs, a bass tab, drum tracks and vocals. TGM provides technicality in means of multiple moving parts and harmonies, multiple instruments, multiple counter-points and melodies, as well as multiple orgasms to anybody that hears it.
For these reasons, Between the Buried and Me reigns supreme in my book in today’s music industry and The Great Misdirect reigns supreme in their repertoire. Case closed.
I’m going to have to say Colors. The first time i heard it, i shot gallons of semen down both pant legs. It literally gave me the ropes. The sheer epic-ness of the album speaks for itself. It has a little bit of everything. I sat with my “anti metal” friend in the car listening to it, and he was surprised that it was so much more than just metal. Even when battling with bouts of severe depression, Colors keeps my mind off of everything. I get lost in it. The ending to White Walls STILL gives me goosebumps even after probably the 100th listen. Even the lyrics are great. So different from everything else I’ve experienced. It keeps me a happy go lucky person, it changes my entire outlook on life. Its simply incredible how BTBAM stays so true to their music and their fans in an age where its all about money. I mean, the lyrics in Foam Born pt B are a message to the fans, thats so friggin cool. To have a group of incredibly talented dudes come together for the love of music really is a beautiful thing. Its so nice to get away from all the crap for an hour and five-ish minutes with colors. It’s music thats actually stimulating. I went and picked up The Great Misdirect Deluxe Edition the day it came out, and I love it, but Colors will always have this special place in my heart. They will be remembered for this. Thanks BTBAM! Please keep it up! (like Colors keeps up my normally flaccid phallus)
SILENT CIRCUS. because when that cd came out i remember being into metal with two of my closest musical friends who, to this day, still remain the only two i can engage in immensely complicated conversation based on certain types of metal. silent circus took my life by shock and opened my mind so much into studying every second of every song that btbam created. while many bands write material that might be on the same level btbam writes, none of them have ever come close to how many types of music and how many types of metal and just how far outside the box they have taken music. its outstanding and im so glad i learned about it when i did. so many gnarly ideas have been spurred in my mind by the constant listening of music and i have always credited btbam as the masters of the engine that is my mind…as far as music goes. and i credit silent circus to sparking that flame. it is genius.
oh, and i think its impressive to note that to this day, though ive heard the entire album thousands of times, i STILL hear little things i’d never noticed before. that is so sick. see ya in west hollywood!!!
I’ll try to be quick n honest without being too cheesy.
Alaska is my absolute favorite album, it COMPLETELY changed how I view music. After going through so many line-up changes Alaska is the album you guys got Dan, Dusty, and Beef (my idol). I dunno if the same holds true to you guys, but to me that was damn special. The moment I heard “Backwards Marathon” I knew you guys were destined for each other. So much variation, technique, and beauty was put into each song, not to mention HEAVINESS! I love how there is always a distinct part in each song that just gets to me. The lil piano jingle in the middle of “Autodidact”, the funky bass groove in “Roboturner”. Listening to “Breather In, Breathe Out,” can easily be described as being in dream, a dream that I can listen to anytime I want to. I can write a book on how Alaska brings out the best in me. Truly an Inspiring album that you guys should cherish as I do. Tommy and Paul were already doing great things, but this album marked the beginning. It’s like watching a child be born, Alaska is the prodigy child. So far i’ve loved watching/listening you guys grow from Colors, and now The Great Misdirect. I hope to see you guys grow even further. Love you guys.
P.S. Hope that wasnt too long or cheesy for you guys haha/
The Silent Circus takes the top spot. No other album can lull me into a peaceful sleep just as successfully as it can energize me to take on hordes of ravenous kodiac bears. Also, “Mordecai” and “Ad a dglgmut” have two of the most passionate and majestic passages ever recorded by anyone ever.
This review may not be as well-informed, however; I haven’t heard the self-titled album, Alaska, or The Great Misdirect in their entirety yet. Though I have heard parts of Alaska and every song I’ve listened to rocks my socks clean off. The new song “Obfuscation” blows me away, too… Oh, what the hell? I guess you have to like them all!
My favorite album has to be “The Great Misdirect” the reason its to simple, in this album all the band members show how far the have gone into their music, they have grown not only technically but also in composing structure, every note, every riff, every hit on the drums make sense, its defenellly a very interesting album to listen to, a mean… its a very colourful ritual to put the cd on the audio reproduction device and slowly sit on the couch with a good cup of coffe, a cigarrette, open the cd box to see the album art, grab the remote and put play on the thing, leave the remote on the center table and never touch it again until its over, and when its over, you can’t even move because the relaxation covers your entire body, its not even necessary to listen to it again, for that day its sufficient so you can live with that experience all day long, and im pretty sure that if you listen to it the next day the feeling will be as different as every minute of every song of this musical work that this guys put together
Definitely Colors, because it was literally the album that got me into metal.
Zoom back two years. Sure, I had dabbled in metal a little, mostly because of the prog metal bands I had listened to due to my Dream Theater obsession, a little Symphony X, a little Iron Maiden, even tried out Meshuggah. I could never really get past how heavy it all was. Then DT announced their progressive nation tour with Opeth, 3 and BTBAM, so I decided to check the band out.
By my third time listen through Colors, I had already got my tickets to the show online and had bought the rest of the band’s catalogue on iTunes, as well as per recommendation albums from Mastodon, Sepultura, and the Dillinger Escape Plan. I haven’t gone back since.
Colors showed me what metal is truly capable of that no other genre can do, and it has led to many a happy, cackling night moshing in pits, and occasionally throwing out my neck.
Colors is still one of my favorite albums of all time, and is by far one of the most epic things ever recorded to a disc.
TL;DR VERSION:
Colors got me into metal and was fucking epic, and if you disagree, then fuck you & your mom with Satan’s razor coated cocks in hell.
i’ve got to say my favorite BTBAM album has got to be, seriously, without a doubt ____________ because, and only because it completely blows my mind and makes it cum. ___________ is so fucking insane that when i listen to it, i completely skip the erection/ejaculation part of sexual arousal and go straight into the white shit coming out of my ears part, and it feels so goooooood. the first time i listened to ____________ i lost my face. took me about a week to find it, throughout which i had to miss school cause i couldn’t go without a face. so i thought, “badass, now that i’m stuck home, i can just listen to ___________ nonstop.” i am so glad you guys are headed in this musical direction with THE GREAT MISDIRECT. it is like the perfect big brother of ____________. sure all your other albums are insane, but none of them can really compare to _____________’s monstrosity. also, i cannot wait for NOV 15th and JAN 13th!!!!!
My favorite would have to be Colors, because Out all the music I have listened to, this Album was the best I have ever heard in my entire life. I believe That it was your land mark in music and that you will be remembered for it; just like what you said in white walls-”We will be remembered for this”. This album honestly changed me. Thank you for Colors.
my favorite album, and i think my moms favorite album, is the great misdirect; why me and my mother’s?
ok, i download the album, and i was listening to it while i was driving with my mom, then, desert of song began, and me and my mother we’re talking and listening, and on the ending part, my mom told me: is that pink floyd? y said no haha, it’s between the buried and me, the band i was about to see out of toun, and she said: why u you didn’t go! they play so cool!
i told her if she can buy the album for me cause i dont have time, she said yes
today is the album release, and my mom know that haha, she told me she will buy it for me tomorrow with her money, so i was like wow, she NEVER buy me cds, or anything like that, and now she offered her self to do it! haha.
so i cant wait for tomorrow
oh have notice that im from mexico, just a city at side of texas,but, she would go to texas and buy it! haha what a nice mom huh? :P
Colors, Dan’s bass playing made me jizz all over my fucking bass while playing and encouraged me to pick it up and start playing again.
I used to love BTBAM but i can’t bring myself to enjoy them anymore because Ziltoid says they suck and are boring. How can I bring myself to argue with such an arrogant being with an overblown sense of self-importance? The all knowing one who can magically create facts in a subjective realm? Only a fool would argue with such an omniscient being. In my pre-Ziltoidian era when I used to like ‘em i liked them all but my favorite was colors :)
Colors is my favorite album that I hate so much. Between the Buried and Me are the worst fucking band in the world who I have never loved more. Never has a hand job felt so good as to the power of Colors. Just so tasty.
The Great Misdirect. During Swim to the Moon i couldnt stop saying this is amazing. I want to learn how to cover all these songs on drums but theres so much talent behind it i dont think ill be able to. As a fellow musician, this new album really demands a great deal of respect and i love it.
Colors, of-fucking-course!
The first time I listened it I was like “OH MY–meh, more technical bullmetalshit”, but then I heard deeper inside of those crappy stolen mp3 and I felt like… in my own planet (I know, I AM in my own planet, im not that dickassed, but actually Im talking about Sun of Nothing’s AWESOMENESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Holy shit, I crap my pants every time I listen to the awes-fucking-ome incredible mindfucking intro of that song.
Also, Ants of the Sky rulz.
And Prequel to the Sequel is great too.
Informal Gluttony=OSOMNESS.
Decade of Statues is the sound of god’s farts.
Damn, all the album is great. I love listening to it from beginning to end, without even breathing between tracks. I masturbate listening to that piece of art. I cry everytime I listen that beautiful piano ov hell in White Walls. I eyacuate in front of my computer or in the street (using my iPod) because of this masterpiece.
So, thanks to this awful band now I have to wear diapers everyday and also carry paper towels…
also, my email is enkuturi-at-yahoo.es
Well, they are all great, but I can’t pick a favorite.
However, I did leave my Ipod on the other night as I fell asleep, and I picked all of the albums to listen to. There I was, dreaming, wandering the ice fields of Alaska, when I came upon a sign made of beautiful Colors, pointing me towards nothingness. Turns out it was a pretty Great Misdirect, because instead of nothingness, I came upon a huge tent, filled with The Anatomy Of….well, it was pretty amazing, let’s just say that. I sat and listened for hours inside this tent, this spectacle, this Silent Circus, and all was right with the world. Then I woke up. I reminisced upon the dream, thinking of a title to apply to what I had just experienced, no (self) title would do, just Between The Buried And Me, that explains it all.
Wow, what a dream…
I’d say that my favorite album of BTBAM is The Anatomy of… because of the fact they covered Queen and Pantara on the same record. Some of the versions they did were better than the originals. Especially the Queen song Bicycle when I heard the harmonies I punch my grandmother and then stuck my dick in her pudding. Obviously all of BTBAM’s regular albums are amazing but it takes balls to do a cover album when most fans shun that kinda stuff. BTBAM forever- DELAWARE REPRESENTS
my favorite btbam album of all time would have to be colors. not simply because as soon as it came out everyone shit their pants at the fact that they can write amazing crazy ass 15 minute songs, but because of the fact that as soon as i heard that album it gave me a new appriciation for dan briggs and turned him into my favorite bass player OF ALL TIME. As a fellow bass player myself i understand how hard it is and how much skill it takes to not only play some of the stuff he does, but to write it from scratch. all those bass lines came from his mind, he created them. and for that, that is why colors is my favorite album from btbam. No disrepect to the fellow members.. but dan is just nasty!!
Cilent Circus. Mordecai is the most beautiful song ever written by and band/artist/etc. I could fucking cry to that shit (but I wont cause I’m not a pussy).
ALASKA! after 2 seconds into All Bodies i was like “who the fuck is this, and why dont i have all thier albums!”
shit, i dont know if i can choose a favorite. can i just say my btbam playlist is my favorite since it has all your songs
New album is great!
Whenever I decide to masturbate it takes me exactly sixty four minutes and twenty one seconds to climax each time. That is because that is the length of Between the Buried and Me’s fourth album, “Colors”. The combination of each instrument played to absolute perfection alongside the angelic voice of Tommy Rogers creates an atmosphere of complete and total euphoria that leaves its listener soaking in a pool of his/her own natural juices.
“Foam Born A- The Backtrack” was the song that I was listening to when I made rat poison laced koolaid just for kicks and left it in my grandmas refrigerator.
“Foam Born B- The Decade of Statues” was the song I was listening to when I heard that my grandma died from rat poisoning.
I crashed the family Honda into a tree when I heard the monkey sound effects near the end of “Informal Gluttony” and thought there was a monkey inside my car ala Jumanji.
“Sun of Nothing” brings me back to my childhood when I used to want to be an astronaut so I could live on the moon so I wouldn’t have to hear mommy and daddy argue anymore. That’s before daddy went on vacation to Vegas with his secretary and never came back, but I am sure he will be back one day. Good times.
I remember I lost my virginity during the hoedown section of “Ants of the Sky” and I suppose it was only fitting that I lost it to my sister.
I’ve always wanted to be an ass surgeon, and “Viridian” was the song I was listening to when I gave Bingo, the family dog, a colonoscopy using windshield wiper solution. It was very successful. Sadly, Bingo died thirty minutes later after shitting blue diarreah all over the place.
During White Walls, I completely shit right through my Levis 151 denim jeans. Shit right THROUGH. There was a hole about 5 inches in diameter where my excrement came flying out during the dual guitar solos near the finale and my entire room smelled of barbecue. My feces landed on my Star Wars bedsheet and was so hot from being ejected out of my ass with such velocity that my bedsheet actually caught fire and my mom had to come upstairs and put it out using breastmilk by squeezing her breasts.
This album has truly made my life worth living, and I am truly grateful for its existence. I really hope I win the hoodie and hat. As I write this, I am preparing to listen to “The Great Misdirect” for the first time, and can only ponder how it will change my life, and if it will change it with the same magnitude that “Colors” has changed my life. If you are out there, I just hope you know that Dan Briggs, Blake Richardson, Paul Waggoner, Dusty Waring, and Tommy Rogers are not men. They are Jesus Christ.
I became a fan with Alaska but colors is for sure one of my favorite albums ever. Colors isnt just a clever name, its appropriate because before I heard it I categorized music as “metal” or “not-metal” but the album opened my eyes to how different types of music (colors) can combine to make something so well written and melodic but can still rip your face off at the same time without it being cheezy or generic. Or maybe just because its so damn fun to listen to…whatever…
Well, my brother’s favorite album must have been The Great Misdirect, because he died yesterday when listening to it. He appeared in my dream last night, and told me to tell you guys here. And he told me that if I win, to put the prize in a circle of miscellaneous white powder, along with a copy of The Great Misdirect, because the Progressive God (aka Dream Theater) told him that finishing the album is the only way he can come back to life. He also told me to make sure and put on the Colors DVD before I go to bed, because when it ends, it will open a zerohole in the TV where he can come back.
boulsche@gmail.com
Oh, my email address reminds me.. “Boulsche” derived from the very end of “The Silent Circus.” What the hell are you saying there?! “I ain’t no little dang old boulsche” hahahaha
Colors – because I never thought I’d ever come across an album that could even come this close to, if not actually, unseating Rush’s “Hemispheres” as my favorite album of all time.
6 little letters: colors (use your imagination to make the letters .2 pt.)
This album is a doozy. Perfect from start to finish.
The very first time I heard it was…
It was a hella cold winter evening when I was shoveling my elderly neighbor dude’s driveway/space ship landing platform. He is an alien from planet NEXT DOOR TRON. any way i was so frustrated i felt i could kill a carrot, because carrots don’t fight back. So i put colors on my iPod that late winter evening, and fell into my own world, a world with noisy, vibrant, soft, beautiful COLORS. At the last note of the piano of White Walls I had finished snow shoveling the vicinity of my neighbors driveway, at that particular moment in space time.
…And there were no survivors
oh, and i do like hoedowns and oompa loompa music BECAUSE I CAN.
P.S. There were riffs that were so incredible on The Great Misdirect that i actually had to stop the music to regain my composure!
fire2000@ameritech.net
*DISCLAIMER – The following story is based on actual events from my travels. None of the events were made up or staged. Please bear with the length of this story as BTBAM is not a band to be shorthanded.*
It all began a few years back when I decided, “It’s time for me to do something with my life.” After the first 15 years of my life, I decided to search for the most elusive treasure of all: the Holy Grail of Music. I gathered my boombox, said goodbye to my family and friends and began my long and perilous journey. It began at the Passage of Washed Up Rockers. I was immediately approached by members of Metallica and Megadeth. “Give us $70 and we’ll play some of our songs at half-tempo for you! But there are no guarantees that we won’t mess up most of the parts.” I politely refused their offers and journeyed into the Metalcore Maze. My ears started to bleed because all I could hear was bass drums, crash cymbals and open C’s blasting breakdown after breakdown. I found my way out of the maze and there it was in front of me. On a golden pedestal surrounded by gargoyles, Between the Buried and Me’s album, Alaska. As soon as I lifted the album, the gargoyles sprang to life and started attacking me. Not being equipped with a weapon, I put the CD into my boombox and hoped for the best. The gargoyles were blown to smithereens by the brutal opening of “All Bodies”. All I could muster was a “wow”. Fast forward through my journey to the Selkies Sweeps River. At first this just looks like a mile long trench with a boat lying in the dirt. But once you get in the boat and loop the sweeps on your boombox, the trench becomes flooded with your tears of joy and takes you down the river. I was in the final leg of my journey back home. I had traveled through shredding guitars, booming bass, rockin drums and vocals that could make a grown man cry for all the right reasons. But I hit one final snag in my journey. As I was almost home, I was confronted by a large dragon with the heads of 50 Cent, Britney Spears, and many other musical artists that don’t deserve to be in the presence of BTBAM. I played the only song I knew would destroy the beast. I cranked my boombox to 13 and blasted “Laser Speed.” The beast became entranced by the Latin groove and started dancing. I knew it would never be able to stop dancing, so I continued home. I had done it. I retrieved Alaska, the greatest album ever, by the best band ever, Between the Buried and Me.
The End.
What a marvelous journey you embarked on. I am sure that you’re friends and family missed you greatly, but BTBAM is surely worth it. I too, enjoy swimming in the Selkies Sweeps River. Not many people are aware of this, but the River is so amazing that you can breathe while under water. No joke. The groove in Laser Speed is now a notorious beast slayer.
Colors because it was an hour long orgasm, in which I have masturbated to multiple times whilst listening to.
It’s definitely tough to pick a favorite, but I’d say colors. All of them are great, all of them have sick moments, but as a whole, I feel like Colors has the best flow and the best written songs. Not to mention the sick instrumentation and the bass solo on Veridian.
“This is all we have when we die.”
This album was very important for the decision about my career, I learned about love and hate, it helped me cope with the loss, it revived me, this is an album that filled my life with that… Colors.
My favorite album from Between the… Something.
got mail? Rll_21@hotmail.com
COLORS. BECAUSE ITS FUCKING COLORS,NUFF SAID.
Which Between the Buried and Me album is my favorite? Colors. To me, Colors is simply a masterpiece, and is one of the most important albums in my life so far. It was the first true progressive album I listened to and its right up there with Scream Bloody Gore by Death and Blackwater Park by Opeth.
I remember the first time I heard the album was right around when it first came out, and for some reason, the first song I heard off the album was “Sun of Nothing.” When I started the song it was what I expected it to sound like, my expectations were soon obliterated. It had something that I wasnt really used to at that point, tempo changes, acoustic elements, and best of all, I could actually hear the bass line (bass line? metal? crazy, isnt it?). The song completely took me off my feet, it sounded like a 5 mile freight train hurdling through the air like an artillery shell through a watermelon, only to collide straight into an impenetrable sheer face of concrete, exploding into a flock of birds, majestically flying to the boundless limits of the sky.
The imagery I got, and still get, from that album is intense, like some sort of hour long psychedelic trip. In many ways its an hour long story, playing out in front of your eyes (errr ears). From start to finish the album is constantly changing and the story constantly progressing. Soaring solos, crushing riffs, sweep picking mayhem, beautiful melodies, and downtempo interludes. One of my favorite parts about Colors are the random instruments and parts that some of the songs have. The accordion in “Prequel To The Sequel” the Banjo/Bar Fight in “Ants of the Sky,” jungle outro to “Informal Gluttony,” and other parts add a twist to the album. Sure, theres plenty of progressive bands out there, but most dont often break from the guitars, and if they do decide to mix up the instruments they use, it often feels like the instruments were added just because the musicians can. That is not the case with Colors. The variety of instruments aids to the metaphor that the album is trying to portray (as well as adding some real emotion to the album); that the future is still open, we have to tools (or Colors) to make it what it is, to paint a spring landscape on those currently “White Walls”…except in this case the white walls of conventional music have been plastered with these 8 songs unique songs, creating “Colors.”
I’m a bass player, and I actually started in part because of “Colors.” I just remember listening to “Prequel to The Sequel” and just saying “God damn, I wish I could play that line” at about 1:00 in when theres that groovy bass riff. A few weeks later I was playing bass for the first time (there you go Dan, dont let anyone tell you that you never influenced anyone with your music).
Although, the most important reason why Colors is my favorite BTBAM (and one of my favorite albums of any band) is the personal meaning a lot of the songs have to me. There were many times back in the day when I felt like i was trapped in that “closed off circle we are part of.” Wake up, drift off to school, come home, drag my legs to work, come home, watch the same show on TV, sleep. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat, floating away towards that big ol’ sun of nothing. Needless to say, I was more than relieved when I first started to really understand the album that I wasn’t only person who felt that way. In some odd sense, “Colors” made me hopeful, that if I wanted to change my life, I could do so whenever, and however, I wanted.
Its been a little over two years since Colors was released. Since then the slip case to the CD has been torn to pieces through constant removal, the grooves in the vinyl might break through to the other side at any given minute, and my once bleak walls have been repainted with a brilliant spectrum of tranquility, bliss, and euphoria. Yet I still find myself playing air bass/guitar to “White Walls,” “Vividian,” and the other songs of “Colors” while in the shower, car, or where ever that song decides to get hurdled into my brain. That isn’t changing anytime soon.
Alaska, because “Autodidact” is really one of the best songs ever. Ever.
All of them, cause I would fucking kill my entire family to get a Spector Bass.
If I had to choose a favorite Between the Buried and Me album, I’d give that distinction to the jaw-dropping Colors. I have still yet to hear anything else on its level, or even in the same building for that matter.
Simply put, Colors is a layered, lush and enthralling masterpiece. It is densely layered, and reveals itself more and more upon every listen. You’d be best off listening through a great pair of headphones, letting yourself get lost in the sonic landscapes created.
If I had to give a single reason as to why I adore the album so much, I’d say White Walls. It’s a no-brainer, closing the album – it sums up the entire experience of Colors in its chugging riffs, brutal vocals, and soaring, melodic guitar work. Despite its 14 minute long running time, it doesn’t feel long at all. It flows as one solid, ever-changing piece – much like the album as a whole. According to iTunes, I’ve played the song a total of 53 times – a whopping 12.36 hours.
White Walls isn’t the only reason Colors has rightly earned it’s praise by both the critics and me – songs like “Prequel to the Sequel” and “Sun of Nothing” build and build to chaotic, cathartic releases – the former being a shining example of this. There’s also another element to BTBAM’s sound on Colors – and that’s their fun-loving, “do whatever the hell we want” personality. “Ants of the Sky” was one of the biggest shocks I’ve ever had when listening to a song – and it came in the form of a hoedown in the final minutes of the song. (The other huge shock would be all of Chris Cornell’s album Scream – but that’s getting into the territory of repressed memories)
Colors is a truly mind-blowing album, and no words can truly describe it. As I said earlier, you have to sit down with a great pair of headphones and absorb it. Otherwise, you’re missing out.
Well, its hard to write for me. I don’t know english))) Alaska I think cause it
was your first album with prog notes and it was “clean” native btbam without
different influences such DT and others…In Alaska you show “yourselfmusicvision”
(nice world!) completely, besides it was the first your album which I heard. I
tought (Sorry, Tommy) what a fucken girl is sing! ))) Thus it was start of my
endless obsession of you, guys. Now this musical journey with you is not simple
musical journey. When I feel bad I simple enjoy btbam and life goes on with their
different changes of mood, untraditional steps and space sound, world return it’s
bright COLORS. After that I think I can make the dream reality – Сделать мечту
реальной!
Welcome to Kaliningrad, Russia and made the dream of mine and your russian fans
reality!!!!!!
It will be the greatest misdirect and the greatest present for us!!!!!
Shit, this is a hard one. Fuckit, Colors Live. To see that album performed on the DVD and to hear the stage recorded version of it is amazing. And the live version of Selkies kicks serious freakin ass. If BTBAM had to release only one live album for the rest of their career, I’m glad it was that one.
Colors because this was the first whole album I had heard by BTBAM which caused me to ejaculate everywhere in complete ecstasy. I was so overwhelmed by this album that I couldn’t stop masturbating to the musical awesomeness of each song. Each song on Colors is orgasmic and truly amazing. All of the songs show off each members amazing abilities to create beautiful music, which caused the unloading of my balls. I ended up staining and ruining all of my clothes and my only instruments due to my excessive meat-pounding, so I really need clothing to cover myself and my last bass is plastered in semen so I don’t touch it anymore, but at least I still have BTBAM albums to listen to!
Colors is my favorite BTBAM album! It makes me happy, it makes sad, it makes me want to live, it makes me want to die. I have sex with female while listening to it, I have sex with myself while listening to it. I upset small children by playing it loudly. I fail at playing guitar while attempting to perform it’s material. I am inspired by the sounds on it. It’s my third favorite album next Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys and the debut album by Smile Empty Soul. I have seen BTBAM perform the material and it made me weep. Selkies is my favorite guitar solo.
I would have to say Colors is my favorite which I’m sure many people would agree with.
Although, Alaska, The SIlent Circus, and the self-titled all hold places in my heart, Colors was just filled with so many epic moments and I love how it all just flows together. I’ve listened to it sooo many times I’ve lost count, and it certainly displays the talent this band can pump out.
My favorite BTBAM album would have to be Colors. The buildup to the final guitar solo is just so awesome, and it gets me pumped with so much adrenaline that the only way I can release it is if I go outside, wedge toothpicks under my toenails, and kick soccerballs. OH MY GOD!!!! everytime I think about it it just gives me a huge ba-noner. If I had to compare the awesomeness of the album to any thing else it would have to be the end of Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles 2 with Vanilla Ice and Super-Shredder…
The reintroduction of beautiful sounds to my brain come in the process of the color spectrum. My journey of being a fan of Between the Buried and Me all started in a car. I was growing in all new music, which may or may have not been a good thing. But when I heard the album The Silent Circus for the first time, I was so confused. I have never heard something like it before. And foolishly I merely only enjoyed the soft part in the closing arguments of the songs integrity. (Just so you guys know I am going to make this sound like I am a genius, just thought I’d get that out of the way now.) Well furthermore…haha. Well, for starters I am a musician and I was and have been constantly adapting to a new sound. Trying to find the band that would set the guideline for the influence that would spark creativity and make music something more to me than just the passing of time through sound. I wanted to feel what the song writer(s) were feeling. I wanted to be able to hear the perfect record. The record that would indulge my senses and consume my brain and my art. Something so perfectly designed that I myself would consider it something of my own. If that makes sense. Every generation has that one record that redefines the art of sound for them forever. I was constantly trying to adapt to the aggressive nature of metal. But what was coming out was nothing short of filth. I had no foundation. I always liked songs but there was never “THAT” album. My parents had Abbey Road and Darkside of the Moon. My elders has Scenes From A Memory, and Deliverance. Of course I found those when I grew older, But I didnt have that album that would transcend through my generation and reshape my musical existence forever. Than…one day…after experiencing all that my generations music had to offer and endlessly being on the search for that one album that would make me say with an exasperating voice for the rest of my life…”That album was amazing.” Colors was born. Everyone had their album….and selfishly I suppose I wanted mine and it was an up hill struggle to find mine. I heard it all. I wanted heavy, beautiful, touching, different, soulful, and real music all on one album. I knew it wasnt too much to ask for. And it came to me in the form of an 8 song masterpiece known as Colors. I had loved Alaska but I was not prepared for what was to be bestowed upon my life for the remainder of my years upon this earth. I had found it. And not to sound weird, but it was like it had been written for me. Its like the guys in the band asked me what I wanted to hear on an album and they wrote as I constructed their masterpiece. It was breath taking. And it gave me the push I needed to find the sound I dreamed of and heard in my head. My dear friend Andrew and I locked ourselves in my room for nearly 7 months and jammed and practiced and studied. Basically had no lives, but for what has come from it, I would never trade that time for the world. The sounds that were stirring in my head were now made real. I finally had my Scenes From a Memory, my Deliverance, my Abbey Road, my Darkside of the moon, my Moving Pictures. Colors has redefined my musical journey. I see those kids who are on that journey to find their sound. And they just need to find that one album or song that will separate them from the closed of circle we all find ourselves in…and my heart goes out to them. But I know that the journey is much needed for all musicians. And I know I am not alone when I say that Colors is the greatest album of my generation. I challenge all of you who are in that struggle to find that sound, where nothing gives you that feeling in your heart, to not stop looking. Even if it takes you a life time. Because when you do hear the sounds that album has in store for your ears and soul….you will never forget it for the rest of your life. I dream of a day when I get to show my son Colors and he’ll wont care one bit because its really old and nobody cares about what their dad listens to in most cases. But yeah…it will always be mine. And I know it will transcend through time…in the hearts and mines of all who listened to that album for the first time and it was all that they dreamed of hearing. My only wish and hope and dream…is to one day write my own Colors. Its a dream worth living for. Thanks you Tommy, Paul, Dustie, and Blake. Much appreciated.
P.S. I got the chance to see Colors live in its entirety at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. And to say the least….it left me speechless for days. I had not only heard the album and dissected it…but I saw it.
The early loves seems to become jaded…
I’m never expecting this…
Glance towards the mirror,
Imagination towards the stars…
The endless desire for my one and only true love…
This will never change I predict…
But I do get tired…
If only they knew what push we have given…
For this music…
This happiness that keeps us all sane…
Cold nights seem to force questions, not wanting to accept these thoughts…
I have worked and will keep working…
To keep the tradition of my one true motive in life…
Music…
My only love…
Once building drum boxes and pretending to be the artist…
I guess I’m here but it feels weird…
So weird…
To know how weird all this can be…
It seems to never work out like I planned…
Like we planned.
One day it will come together…
First place desire in the backwards marathon…
That’s all we can ask for…
-Backwards Marathon, BTBAM (Alaska)
It came together:)
Colors. Because I dont like anything that makes sense musically.
While each and every Between The Buried And Me song and album is amazing, I am going to have to say that Colors is my favorite. Every album is special in its own way, though. The first album, Between The Buried And Me, introduced the world to a group of fellows who had something to say. The Silent Circus showed us their range, as well as their thoughts on the world around them. Alaska helped each and every one of us accept ourselves for who we are. Colors, however, touched me more than any thing I could dream of. It showed how beautiful everything is. It told us than following dusk is always dawn. That the world is not as cruel as it seems, and that there is beauty to be found in even the darkest whole. I must say that all of the songs, especially Sun Of Nothing, was truly amazing. When I was on the brink of suicide, that song told me to look up, and enjoy the planet around us. I lived to see another day. And for that, I thank you, Between The Buried And Me. Thank you very much.
Kumar
surajkpatra@yahoo.com
Colors! I discovered BTBAM while reading an issue of modern drummer that included Blake Richardson. I had no clue who they were. They praised his skill so much I had to check them out. Upon listening to colors in its entirety I was blown away! It was progressive and it was heavy enough for my taste! I thought I found the holy grail. It’s just that everyone on this album is so extremely talented/creative. I had never heard a band as a whole come together in such perfect harmony. It has inspired me as a musician to not be afraid to experiment and not stay within a certain genre. Of course after watching the DVD i was even more hooked. Their DVD performance was incredible. I drove 4 hours to the closest show to experience it live and it was freaking amazing! Few albums would make me do such a thing! Informal Gluttony gives me chills! Actually I couldn’t possibly put in words how good this album is… I’m just going to stop here.
Colors is the best metal album of all time. no fake description needed. the album speaks for itself. blake richardson is the most original drummer out there. paul and dustie can play the heaviest riff ever right before the most moving melodic bridge you have ever heard. dan briggs knows whats up on the bass, and tommy pulls it all together with the best growls.
WHHHHHIIIIITTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEE WAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Oh Man color has got to be my all time favourite. the color album is pure genius every song works perfectly together in any order. Meaning when you shuffle that album, each song connects to tell a different story… If Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and (lets say the devil) all have an orgy, the result will be BTBAM
not only is colors my favorite BTBAM album but probally my favorite album of all time. I fell in love with that CD, every second of that album is just beautiful. I’ve never heard anything more original and creative, I listen to atleast one song from colors every single day. Went out and picked up ‘The Great Misdirect’ the day of release and I hope to be seeing you guys play in January with Cynic.
Zeriuka717@hotmail.com
To be honest I love every single album. With each passing album you guys have shown the world a prime example of what it means to evolve, mature, and progress(the last word being one that is thrown around too generically these days in metal, is completely relevant here). With all that said, I would have to choose either Colors or The Great Misdirect. Just like what has been said about 1000+, those two albums set have a new standard for not only metal, but for musicians of all genres to try to match in emotion and versatility. Oh yea, it’s also pretty badass that even though I’m a metalhead at heart and my dad is all about his bluegrass/country/hard rock, these two albums have made their way into both our playlists. Yup….you guys have the 68 – 24 demographic covered, haha. Oh….and I have seen you guys 4 times, and I have yet to meet Paul. I met everyone else, but him. Come on guys make it happen!!!!!
Colors. Not only is it a masterpiece but it makes my ghetto friends TRIP THE FUCK OUT while stoned and I blast it in the car. It made my one friend quit listening to Lil Wayne because “That heavy metal shit you were playing about the colors is da realest shit ever.”
I am going to already name The Great Misdirect my favorite record. I wasn’t expecting it to top Colors, and was surprised to hear Tommy say that he expected it to. As soon as Mirrors/Obfuscation came out, I already knew it would be my favorite. It’s not just an amazing piece of music, but it speaks to my natural style. Never have I listened to an album and been that impressed with every member of the band while still enjoying the quality of the music to such an extent. It takes talent to make technical progressive music, but the TRUE hard part is making it sound amazing, beautiful, brutal and epic. Colors did this first, and The Great Misdirect completely perfected the method. No, the record isn’t perfect, but there’s not one that is. It’s all about the aesthetics of the piece.
For me, Colors was indeed the best album by this amazing band. It seemed to flow so well. The transitions were subtly placed so everything fit right in, the instrumentation was amazing, and it truly showcased the talents of all the band members. Ants of the Sky was the song that got me into metal, and it features the largest musical spectrum I’ve ever heard in one song, as can be said about the album.
I’ve listened to Colors at least twice a week since early 2008 or so, and it still hasn’t gotten old for me. I’ve learned the entire album on guitar, both Paul and Dustie’s parts, as well as all the harmonies and background guitars/effects.
I don’t really have much to say, and I probably won’t win. I just want the band to possibly know that one of their only fans up on the expanse of snow and ice called Labrador would pay monstrous amounts of money to see them, and that they inspired me to pick up a guitar a become a musician myself.
my favorite would have to be colors. i love the mixture of the heavy and the mellow. it is seriously the only cd that i never get sick of listening to it over and over and over. in fact i think it is the best cd i own.
At this point in time I’d have to say The Great Misdirect. I got the album early when it leaked and I’ve listened to it at least 3 or 4 times a day, and I still plan on buying a copy. I’m in love… with the album.
PS. When i found out that my band got to open up for BTBAM in Jacksonville on November 22nd, It made my entire month. Not only am i honored to share the stage with one of my biggest influences, i get to see five amazing musicians play some of the best music I’ve ever heard, for free.
The best Between the Buried and Me album…. Lets try the best modern progressive album EVER written.
COLORS.
BTBAM has been changing metal and music perspectives since thier begining. Listening to any of thier albums is like listening to a musical encyclopiedia; they are able to combine more genras and technical attributes to seemless prefection than any other current musical group. Colors is the best example of there genius and the new album The Great Misdirect carries on thier tradion to epic propotions. It will be years before the music community will be able to grasp the the effects of these albums to the full extent.
If the band ever reads these, I just want to say thank you. Your music has helped me to be far more creative in writing my own music, and rocking the fuck out super hard (occasionaly scaring little old ladies).
Keep on making rad music and putting on kick ass live shows.
P.S Headline in Canada some time!!!
P.P.S Dan, make a tab book for the new album please!
Dude, they ARE headlining the Canada in January.
Well, they have two headlining stops, in Toronto and Montreal.
Goin to the Montreal one too (hopefully). Hell yeah!
But yeah, I hope they do a full Canada tour sometime. INCLUDING ST. JOHNS!
The Great Misdirect. Because it is like an orgasm for your ears.
I would say “The Silent Circus” for the hidden manland track. As in, “I’m a man, you’re a man, I ain’t no gawddamn WOman!” Plus it’s an absolutely solid sophomore effort. But I am going to have to go with The Great Misdirect since my artwork was used for the cover.
Seriously, they used your artwork on the cover?
Alaska. Each track is perfectly constructed and great to listen to, with some of my favourites being Selkies: The Endless Obsession, Backwards Marathon and The Primer. It’s a perfect summary of Between the Buried and Me’s unique sound by combining the raw horsepower of The Silent Circus and the sincerity of the self titled record. It’s my second favourite Metal album ever made and that’s not just because the intro to All Bodies is the best song to Headbang to.
the url is some stuff me and my band made and we made it into fruity loops haha. okay so here i go. Between the Buried and Me has been my favorite band since the Alaska album. Then the Colors album and dvd came out and i was like holy cow i cant believe how much more unbelieveable they have become. now The Great Misdirect has come out, i MUST say that it is BTBAM’s Best Album, (aka worlds best album). i love it more than colors because it has a weird feel to it you know? like the mood is more…chill. i love it. the guitar solos are amazing as usual and the singing is in my opinion, sweeter. the drums have gotten even more complicated, so i have to work extra hard to cover one of yalls songs, and same for the guitar. Paul and Dustie, i bow to you two. and Blake, if i wanted to meet any drummer in the world, it would be you because you have made this album so much more fun to listen to than colors. the bass is sweeeeet in The Great Misdirect and the solo in Mirrors is simply fantastic. Tommy, i think your vocals are so phenominal in this album. ofcourse the screaming is sweet but singing i think you have grown in. i may be wrong but its my opinion. i havent found anything even close to being boring in this new masterpiece yall have made. Swim to the Moon is 17:54 and all i have to say to that is thank you. no other album is great enough to have a 18 minute song than The Great Misdirect. ofcourse i had to learn the beginning on marumba. :P. well if i win or not, i will always be a biiiiiiiigggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg (not in fat but if you take it that way then thats hilarious) fan of every single one of you in this band. i believe that this band will never die because The Great Misdirect is proof that yall only get better and better. thank you for reading this. – Hunter Blake Fegtly ( how cool is it that my middle name is Blake! )
by the way if you go to my link, dont listen to intro its kinda gay
The Great Misdirect. I listened to The Great Misdirect and I “jiizzed in my pants”
I FORGOT DAN!!! I must have accidentally deleted his name. IM SO SORRY!!! Dan…Im sorry. Dont take it personal. Youre the freaking man!! I met you on the street in philly after that Unitarian church show. Im so sorry. Rock n roll
Colors: Colors flowed together so well that it was impossible to only listen to one song, Start at Foam Born, and end with the incredible White walls solo
Although all BTBAM sound waves are mesmerizing in their own way, I’ve found it hard to decide, due to multiple eargasms and chronic hard-on, between Alaska and Colors. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve sat and studied every note on every album, but the two have dented a massive crater in my brain (as if my brain were large enough to support such a sized indentcion) that refuses to refill so I can try to get something else stuck in there for a while. But if I had to choose one, it would be Colors. The sounds, the diversity, the feeling, the flow of it all, it just makes me happy. I find that it (Colors, along side Alaska) has re-invented the rhythm of my pulse. Whether that means I’m chaotic at all times (with brief intermissions of beauty and comfort) or that I simply walk to a new, more lively beat, I am happy you’ve graced me with it all. – Dan, your playing has made me want to better mine. Colors has shown your talent past the point I thought it could have been taken after Alaska. I’ve been playing for about 6 years and your style has made me see a new light on heavy players. Though you probably hear it a lot, you are a god at what you do. Not to leave anyone out, you all are so fucking talented I’m normally at a loss of words when in conversation about your music. You all inspire me. Now with all that said, even if I don’t win this contest that everyone here is desperately scrambling for, with fingers crossed all their hopes and prayers circling their cerebrum, at least you’ve (or at least I’d like to think) heard my words… well… more like read them, but you fucking get it. You are amazing musicians, and people, and at least you now know that after all my rambling (it’s a disorder I have. I deal with it. You should too. If not, well… fuck you then.) I guess I can sum this all up with…… COLORS IS MY FAVORITE ALBUM… (though I haven’t picked up The Great Misdirect yet… I should do that). Cheers and good times!
I purchased “The Great Misdirect” last night after posting my comment. Though I haven’t given enough time to let it soak in properly, I’m still going with “Colors”. “The Great Misdirect” is beautiful. It has definitely just about at level with “Colors”, but it hasn’t surpassed. Thanks for it all, though.
I would have to say Colors, because it brings me to a place beyond where I am. A place filled with ants of the sky, crazy sweeps, a sun of nothing, some white walls, and a colorful bass solo. Seriously, dan you are one of my favorite bassists. I know there are probably a thousand or so comments that are cooler or more funny than this one, but I love Dan’s bass playing, it is so much different and better than other metal bassists. And Viridian is SOOOOOOO good, I’ve tried to learn it but my Squire (fail i know, but its all i got) doesn’t have enough frets. The bass runs, incredible phrasing, incredible chops, and soaring harmonics inspire me as a bassist and so does the rest of Colors. If anything I just hope you feel appreciated Dan, because as a bassist I know that we are underapreciated. Spector basses are so nice, and I hope it goes to the best/most deserving comment-ee. BTBAM is my favorite band and if you guys would come to Dallas more i could go see you guys and my life would be complete. New album is rediculous, never quit, and thank you guys if you do read this.
Probably Colors. I’ll tell you right now, my pants didn’t survive that album. Blue balls are a bitch. I really miss those pants. I would have cleaned them, but, on account of how crusty they were, I wasn’t able to fold them into the washer. Goddamn that was a great album.
The Great Misdirect has to be my favorite because it has the most variety.
They’ve come back with the same intense kind of music.. but also at the same time..
the come back with these indescribably amazing clean songs like mirrors and desert of song.
The riffs seem to take influence from different things coming from all over the world, and they’re all so very catchy. Plus who doesn’t love that keyboard line in the beginning of Fossil Genera…
It makes me feel like I’m listen to music on some kind of like evil marry-go-round or something.
Oh and I forgot to mention… Disease Injury Madness has like a horse in it….
yeah nuff’ said.
I’d have to say Colors because it was the first time I heard Between The Buried And Me. It changed my entire view on what could be done with in one song. When I heard that album, I tried to listen to bands that people suggested because I liked you guys and they were NOTHING compared to what I heard. You guys are, hands down one of the greatest if not the greatest thing metal has right now. I wish I was as talented and awesome at writing as you guys. Oh and Colors also made me jump around my house and freak out, not many CD’s or bands in general can do that.
OH and the new album is FAMAZING!!
Colors just make me feel that it is possible the perfection. Makes me find sounds that i´ll never was capable to imagine… Makes my mind blow up in dreams untill i´m awake… makes my day, every day :)… in a feew words… it´s fucking awesome and i love it! BTBAM bring you´re metal asses to mexico again :)
(my english sucks, i know… sorry)
I will have to pick The Silent Circus because it introduced me to the majesty that is Between The Buried And Me. The lyrics to the need for repetition is just brutal and then goes into MANLAND. Mordecai is me favorite song of all time and the music video fucked my mind for like a month when my friend first presented it to me while i was intoxicated from the victory records dvd that he got when he bought an Atreyu Cd long ago. Until this day it is my favorite album because of the raw power it has even though the sound quality is shit i hapen to love the shit dearly. morbid_mentality1@yahoo.com
Colors – for the hoedown, and the ‘la la la las’.. and the polka… and Dan’s bass solo.. and the intro/outro to informal gluttony… and for the meanigful lyrics and the indescribable way they are performed… and for the 1 hour 4 mins of non-stop beauty.. for playing the whole thing live in one go… for the most watched DVD i have ever bought… for the end of white walls being so amazing that i have to pause my music at the end because any song that plays next would ruin the emotion i get from it.. for having so many good things to say about it that i forget how to construct sentences and just have ‘for..’ over and over… for being so good that i have been hugely anticipating TGM since the moment their myspace said “back home writing”… and last but not least – for Blake having a huge fucking gong behind him on stage to finish up shows in style!
Colors… without a doubt, because it was the first “Core-Shit” album I’ve ever liked hahaha. I remember when I first bought, as a recommendation from my friend, and I basically threw it across the room 10 minutes in to the album. I used to only listen to death metal back then I couldn’t stand that “core-shit”. Months later I became, for no apparent reason, utterly addicted to the album and I would listen to it for 3 or 4 times a day! It’s not core-shit at all but rather progressive, intelligent, and emotional. I still think that singer’s a heroine addict though… how the fuck is he so skinny???
most of them are vegans… that’s why they’re skinny :P
Colors is my favorite album. I believe Colors is an album in which Between the Buried and Me defines itself as a band that is musically interested in progression (no pun intended) and in creating the best music they possibly can. With the self-titled album, The Silent Circus, and Alaska (disregarding The Anatomy Of), there seemed to be definitely a heavy mood that the band obeyed strictly too (I mean, they are metal), but all the while there are definitely bits where the band is obviously moving towards a more abstract and general idea of progressive rock. With every odd riff, sound effect, or musical deviation, there is a clear indication that BTBAM is more than just metal– it’s revolutionary music. It’s music for the sake of music. It’s music for the sake of human connection, progression, and evolution.
Colors is the realization of that, and I believe the self-actualization of Between the Buried and Me. It’s evident in the mixed styles. From start to finish, Colors is metal, yes, but more than that. Colors is an album that will connect, that will push the boundaries of music. I challenge anyone to find a band that so easily and aptly switches from metal to Western-style, Circus-style, or Egyptian-style music.
Now, with The Great Misdirect, I think the importance of Colors is shown in their continued use of odd (but amazing) use of varied music styles. Colors, in all ways, was the best turning point, progression, and realization of BTBAM. And yet, they still incorporate crushing metal as a foundation.
P.S. “Ants of the Sky” is my favorite song off of Colors, and seriously, seriously guys (yes, Tommy, Dan, Paul, Dustie, and Blake), you’ve surpassed my expectations with The Great Misdirect. It’s amazing.
cdkubik4@hotmail.com
My favourite album would have to be colors. What other album can blend into one giant song and mix nearly every genre possible. It’s simply a masterpiece. Also because I have white walls in my room.
For me, it’s Colors. I bought it the day after my wedding on a whim. We were getting a few things to take on our 2 hour drive to cincinatti and I wanted something new to listen to. I bought Colors and a cd by Bury the Dead. I don’t think I have even listened to the entire bury the dead cd because it sucked. As soon as Foam Born pt B hit I knew it was a great cd. I ripped it to my zune and cranked it up the whole drive. Fucking amazing music.
The Silent Circus beats Colors for me by just a tad bit. In my opinion it showcased the best of their menacing and brooding qualities best. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved the sheer amount of versatility and transitional prowess that they’ve achieved these past years, but nothing beats the uncompromising brutality of Destructo Spin, the soft heartfelt lyrics of Shev pt. 2, or the brash unpredictability of Mordecai. I’ll love this band to the end of time. They’re exactly what I like to claim as the musician’s music.
I think the great misdirect, is my fav between the buried and me album. Why? Because i’m going to see it LIVE on the great misdirect tour with fucking CYNIC. Without Cynic , i’d venture to say there would be no BTBAM today. No intronaut.
Also, the great misdirect is simply a good trip.
Weed+The Great Misdirect=Awesome
Colors! Just because my ears has melt away with the earphones since the first day I heard!
Colors brought me to this band, and I suppose I will always love it for being such an amazing multi-faceted piece, such brutality met with such grace.
well hell im going to have to say colors cuz its sick as fug… you can just jam to it now stop and it just gets better .. plus its a hella smoking cd too… and how everything flows all to gather.. so yeah colors
I’ve been hooked on the Colors Live album, and I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be who I’ve grown into without this disc, as a work of art the CD absolutely slays me…I love that the actual sound of the band is present in all their glory in real time…the auditory live experience is brought together with passion, cohesion, intensity and the absolutely insane precision and clarity that almost no one else in music is close to achieving in the live setting(there are those that come close and some who surpass but that’s for another time and place to argue, besides that, it’s just an opinion!) While I love the DVD…the CD lets my mind wander without visual input…it takes me places the visual presentation doesn’t allow me to…and that it’s a fooking LIVE recording astounds me…Tommy pumping the crowd up before the solo in “White Walls”, the amazing subtlety of “Viridian”, but I’m not thinking about the performance onstage, this performance asks me to look outward and inward at the same time, without eyes, intuitive and cerebral in the same breath…as the disc spins, I’m wondering about lyrics like “night goggles instead of sleep”, or thinking about Camilla and why I know her or someone like her, “tuning out the tired herds” while sitting in rush hour traffic, my lovers breath on my neck as the first piano notes ring out,…and how I feel the clean notes in my chest as my heart fills with concrete right before I hear a lyric about “floating towards the sun…”, the tension and release, the crescendos and lulls in each composition…basically, this is the soundtrack to Life, to my Life, to all our Lives…perfect in its chaos, astounding in its beauty and is full of meanings and messages if we’d all stop and think about them…
my favorite has to be alaska. just too many good tracks on that cd for it to be anything else.
Alaska, hands down. It could be the nostalgia, it could be the insanely well crafted math metal, who knows? I remember turning to look at the CD player in awe when I heard the vocal harmonization break in the very first track and thinking “this is not a normal metal CD”. Also, nothing beats Backwards Marathon in terms of shear awesomesauce.
Waddup.
Right now, my favorite Between the Buried and Me cd would have to be The Great Misdirect. Why, you may ask? (hint: you never thought about asking) Cause it being so new, it’s like Christmas morning. I’m all gitty and gay for it! The only difference is that I’m not hiding my boner at all. You know, cause both Christmas and mornings bring great boners yet there should only be one tree erect. And cause it’s something new, I guess.
Actually, fuck it. New reason why The Great Misdirect is my favorite BTBAM cd.
IT MADE ME GO AGAINST MY OWN MORNING WOOD.
Colors live is my favorite Btbam album because the fact that they can completely reproduce the sound of the record live is beyond astonishing, and listening to it at work when the LA LA LA LA part comes on in sun of nothing i cant help but sing along and my coworkers give me the strangest looks ever but it doesn’t matter because im experiencing complete orgasm of the ears and they are unaware. The Dual guitar work in Foam born B: The decade of statues is my absolute favorite harmonic guitar part of all time, Dan’s bass playing in Virdian is absolutely incredible, to where i looked at all my basses and though about selling them and working the night shift at arby’s because i couldn’t even begin to write something as awesome as that. Btbam is also the only band i know of that can pull off a Polka breakdown in a song and have it work and be as awesome as it is. bottom line Colors live if is so good that if it was the health care bill it would be so good all the diseases would be cured in an instant, if it was a bailout poverty everywhere would be squashed and everyone would be so wealthy they would have diamond encrusted yachts and solid good toilets.
Colors live is my favorite Btbam album because the fact that they can completely reproduce the sound of the record live is beyond astonishing, and listening to it at work when the LA LA LA LA part comes on in sun of nothing i cant help but sing along and my coworkers give me the strangest looks ever but it doesn’t matter because im experiencing complete orgasm of the ears and they are unaware. The Dual guitar work in Foam born B: The decade of statues is my absolute favorite harmonic guitar part of all time, Dan’s bass playing in Virdian is absolutely incredible, to where i looked at all my basses and though about selling them and working the night shift at arby’s because i couldn’t even begin to write something as awesome as that. Btbam is also the only band i know of that can pull off a Polka breakdown in a song and have it work and be as awesome as it is. bottom line Colors live if is so good that if it was the health care bill it would be so good all the diseases would be cured in an instant, if it was a bailout poverty everywhere would be squashed and everyone would be so wealthy they would have diamond encrusted yachts and solid gold toilets.
Alaska! Hands down. When my boyfriend put Alaska on to have sex to thats when I knew I loved him. Best. Sex. Ever. Followed by the Colors for a close second. Picked up Great Misdirect today and it was one of the best days of my life. Come back to Minneapolis sooonnn!
Annie
While 5 out of 5 kids who go on shooting rampages listen to Slayer, I can confidently say that they would all have decided to go back to writing shitty Attack Attack! inspired trash-metal in their basements if they had listened to this a few times through. Or they would have become Brokencyde (admittedly, almost as bad as going all Columbine somewhere).
“The Great Misdirect” is pretty much the answer to world peace, wrapped up nicely inside 59.5 minutes; 6 tracks of face-smashing, genre-bending, eardrum-piercing technicality. The album happens to be my favorite of theirs so far and has worn out the repeat function on my iTunes for the past 24 hours or so. Not only can you actually hear the vocals above the mix (I’m looking at you, Colors), but every guitar line is crisper than a Long Island bro’s frosted blowout tips. From my music theory nerd standpoint, the counterpoint between the soaring guitar lines at the opening of Obfuscation and the sheer amount of thematic development in Fossil Genera make me jizz my theoretical pants.
tl;dr: listen to this album, it will cure cancer, AIDS, and H1N1, as well as rain down flowers, rainbows, and unicorn poop upon you.
thats a tough one..well idk i’ve been into you guys since the silent circus..i just remember when i first saw the mordecai video..it was the most aggressive, yet beautiful song i’d heard at the time..the silent circus is the album that made me a btbam fan and when alaska came out, it only solidified that..same with colors and now the great misdirect…anyway i think the silent circus is your guys’ best album because i have so many memories associated with it..
Even though I think every BTBAM album holds its own qualities of greatness, I think my favorite album would have to be Colors. It was a pinnacle in my journey for great music. It introduced me to a whole new world of possibilities. The first time I listened to it was in late 07′ when it came out and I was in my friends room just sitting on the couch for that little over an hour of greatness in a state of trance. It symbolizes so many things for me personally( Too many to name here). It represents the best show I have ever been too ( Knitting Factory, Hollywood CA, w/ Behold… the Arctopus and August Burns Red) with them playing all of Colors and that amazing Aesthetic into Alaska into All Bodies song and also Mordecai encore. It represents all of those times that whenever me and friends played it that we would have to sing along like maniacs. It represents when all of us ever got near a piano we would play the foam born intro. It represents the point in my life where I quit soccer after playing for 10 years and picked up a guitar which finally led to my inspiration to become a better musician. I purchased the colors songbook and practiced it nearly non stop on my brothers shitty $80 Epiphone, his first guitar and really mine 2. I have been trying to play all genres of music ever since on my own without any lessons and I think I can thank all the members of BTBAM for giving me the motivation, the patience, the devotion and guts to pursue my true love…..MUSIC. Never change guys. ( Ethan Baker is currently listening to: The Great Misdirect, Fossil Genera- A Feed From Cloud Mountain)
Colors. Because pubes. That’s why.
Colors; it was definitely my favorite album of 2007, and easily one of my favorite of all time. I started listening to btbam around the time Alaska came out, and I love both that and The Silent Circus, but I think Colors represents a real transformation for the band where they really came into their own. It was brilliant from start to finish, but I love every btbam album, and they all have their own unique qualities that they bring to the table.
I am going to listen to The Great Misdirect a few times and send in a Message about how amazing this one is before i start to compare it with others..but i must say that you guys albums make me feel less isloated from society and Tommy you get in my head and i feel like its a perfect description of what i have no words for. keep an eye out for me and keep NC music alive!!!
Absolutely, 100% Colors. Nobody has the balls or creativity to write music like this anymore. The only other people who could write anything anywhere near this epic are Steve Vai and Devin Townsend. Vai doesn’t have enough vocals in his music (from what I’ve heard), to compare with Between the Buried And Me, and while I’m a huge SYL fan, Devin Townsend is too messed up in the head to write the great melodies that Between the Buried and Me Do. I remember reading all sort of “Top 10 Album of the Year” lists in 2007 and the two that always topped the lists were Colors and Ziltoid The Omniscient. Both were great albums, but Colors was one you could listen to at any time of the day. There was always something you were in the mood for and you could get into.
The best song on Colors is by far Sun of Nothing. I wish they would play this song live again, because I’ve been dying to see it. I used to play this song on the radio, and nobody could believe it was the same song from beginning to end. It just doesn’t feel as long as an 11 minute song should. It’s so dynamic and changing that you never get bored. And I still get goosebumps at the end of the song, where they sing “I’m floating towards the sun-the sun of nothing.”
The entire album is like this, you can’t get bored with it. There is something for everyone. While most bands start their careers with their own ideas, sounds, and themes, many eventually sell out and write only what they are expected to write and what the masses want to hear. Between the Buried and Me continue to write music that is distinctly theirs, and they consistently move in the direction they want to. In a way, they give the world more of a middle finger than any hardcore band ever could. Screaming “Fuck You” isn’t the same as actually doing it. Music these days has become boring and stale, everything sounding the same and nothing really standing out. 30 years from now Between the Buried and Me will be recognized as the musical geniuses they are, and the one bright spot in the cess pool of pop music that we are currently inundated with. If only more musicians and groups would open up their ears and expand their styles, then maybe music would be worth buying. And when the group is dead and gone, Colors will be seen as the turning point in their career, opening up new possibilities and showing the world exactly what the human brain can create when it is really challenged.
Can any other band write an hour long album with 15 minute songs, absolutely no repeated sections, and then play it live from beginning to end with no mistakes? Hell no!!!
lets just get straight to the point here…you guys rule and put almost every other band ive ever listened to, to shame. you guys have so much passion and energy in your music and it shows with having songs as long as 14:13 (white walls) but the crazy part is i actually listen to it all, most the time without even realizing it because i get so into it time doesnt really matter but yeah, fact of the matter is you guys are sick and keep doing what your doing because its become a great inspiration in my life. thanks guys.
I remember dismissing them when I first heard The Silent Circus (I’m sorry, my musical tastes were still finding themselves). Someone let me listen to Alaska years down the road and now I have canary fights and mouse fights where I make the canaries and mice try to fight me and sometimes each other while I crank Alaska. Colors on the other hand makes me fight myself or my grandmother, and then lullaby me to bed bruised and bloodied once Viridian hits (I know what you’re thinking bloodied and beaten by mice and canaries? You try fighting 100 food deprived rodents and 47 skittish birds). This way I’m well rested and good to make my protein shake and high fiber strawberry yogurt during White Walls and start my day right. Nothing shouts “My, what a grand day,” like BTBAM and a regular bowel movement.
Choosing a btbam album? you guys are fool , i dont know , i just cant choose one, each one are kinda special to me, each album fit on the mood i am feeling, ( including TGM ).This band is the only one that can beneath my soul with their music like the clean part in DIM, it comes get me so hard…
I think ive pissed off my friends so much by talking of this band hahah like when colors released i was like ” listen to that part ” ”did you hear that riff??” all those kind of sentense.This band did not only made me addicted to them but made my mind open to any genre, and today i’ve found my path in the music because of them, without them i would not gave any attention to ” Fingerstyle acoustic intrumental like ( Erik Mongrain,Antoine Dufour,Michael Hedges,Preston Reed,Andy Mckee,Don Ross) .” I always had a spiritual view of things and now with this style i can express myself easily .
And for the main them, choosing an album? well me im choosing the 5 albums because the band for me is a masterpiece.
Thanks you so much for making a good sound and being true to yourself in this world!
I have not heard The Great Misdirect yet. So right now colors is my favorite album. I was asked to right a paper on my favorite artist in my music appreciation class and I wrote it about BTBAM using colors as a main basis how the whole cd can be listen to as one song and the diversity of it . All the albums are badass though even the anatomy of.
BTBAM is the most naturally talented group of individuals around. You can’t pick a favorite out of 6 albums of beauty because they all have their own ways of explaining different life events, feelings and emotions. Every album tells different stories of the things Tommy and the rest of the guys are going through and enduring at that point in their lives. Needless to say Between the Buried and Me is my biggest influence as far as playing music goes. Paul and Dustie’s incredible riffs, accompanied by Blake’s ridiculous fills and grooves, Dan’s magical fingers, and Tommy’s timeless voice makes them the greatest group of composers to ever pick up instruments and shred.
Alaska because i like to fuck.
The Great Misdirect. Because I’m part of it.
Colors
When you have it turned up loud enough to make innocent little ears bleed it just brings a smile to my face
seriously this album is about as good as cumming
it has the soft bits to swing along to and the aggressive riffs and vocals that just make you headbang
alaska b’c i love baked alaska and i love baking out my car while listening to alaska
Colors. I have to wear a diaper every time I listen to it.
My favorite BTBAM album is Colors. I think The Great Misdirect is their best album, every song on it is pure genius and all members of the band have gotten that much better… but Colors will always be my favorite because it made me fall in love with music. I had always liked music a lot, but after listening to Colors (the first album I ever heard from BTBAM) with all its technicality and musicianship, it made me appreciate music on a level that I never had before. This music was different, not like most other bands out there today. The amount of thought and creativity to create such dynamic and ever-changing songs just blew me away. With so many different influences from different styles of music, BTBAM is unlike any other band I have ever heard. Seeing Colors performed live, beginning to end, was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Colors has inspired me to not only be a better musician, but also to live my life to its fullest potential. And for that, I say thank you.
After being obsessed with Colors for so long, I naturally had extremely high expectations for The Great Misdirect… and the album exceeded my expectations by far. And I know I will love that album even more once I know it as well as I know Colors.
jfahn12@yahoo.com
Colors, purely and simply because it was the first Between the Buried and Me album I listened to, and the album that made me fall in love with music.
My Dad used to sit me on his work bench and play Dark Side of the Moon to me my whole childhood.
I’m going to sit my kids on my work bench and play Colors to them so they know what inner piece feels like.
joshuaharryhall@gmail.com
Colors was the first album of yours that I ever heard and it made me fucken cream myself man!!! To this day I keep a spare pair of shorts in my bag in case i have an accident on the bus when i crank it up. Most orgasmic album ever in the history of the universe and everything!!! If there was some sort of parallel universe where Colors had not been recorded Chuck Norris would roundhouse kick that universe out of existence causing a catastrophic breakdown of the time space continuum and everything would be sucked into a black hole!!!! Thanks to you guys Chuck Norris will not have to resort to that sort shenanigans and we may live in peace. Praise you almighty Gods Of Metal you are our saviours! So yeh Colors is pretty sick. see ya in downunder in march at fowlers!
joeyyyzz@hotmail.com
Colors,
For making people convince that death metal bands can play Queen-like songs like Foam Born, and epic solos like White Walls. Oh, yeah, and for the amazing part between it.
Hard to choose but I would go with The Silent Circus. Every song on the album is so awesome. I love how they mix metal and jazz, so damn unique! I really enjoy Shevanel Take Two and the meaning behind it….Really great lyrics and meaning behind it! This album made me open my eyes and see that NC has damn potential after all! This band is the best thing to ever happen to our state of NC or better yet Winston…. GO BTBAM GO!!!!
Damn, hard choice… but wait, no, not really a hard choice… Considering my constant listening to BTBAM albums, I have to say that Colors is for me the best in terms of melodies, rythyms and overall composition. I loooove those albums that you just have to press play and let it go until it’s finished… plus I have to say that it will always be linked to a wild night I had with a girlfriend of mine, who absolutely wanted to do it on metal music… I said fine and put on this record… we enjoyed every part (specially the grinding drums parts!) and when came “White Walls”… well you know… I shot white and she became the wall…oops!
I’m gonna have to go with Colors on this one. Alaska was cool cause there was that part in Autodidact where it’s all 7/4, then 15/8, then 7/4, then 15/8, then 13/8, BUT Ants Of The Sky had the part where it’s all like 12/8, 9/8, 12/8, 9/8, 12/8, 9/8, 12/8, Bam! 6/8 out of FXXXING nowhere! Fxxxin blows your sucks off, man.
I must say Colors because i start to listen BTBAM with this album :) and new album is freakin sick
I’d say Silent Circus, just something about that album. Everytime I listen to it I feel a small part of my brain explode from the sheer awesomeness.
Colors has been your most mature and cohesive project to date….some serious Cock-amole on my Face-adilla!!
Colors is my favorite album because it is the only record to date which has registered a 3 on my patented SPLOOGE-O-METER. The first SPLOOGE came (get it!!!) the first time I heard Ants of the Sky. The second SPLOOGE arrived in the Viridian/White Walls segue. And the final (and most bloody?!?) SPLOOGE came when I SPLOOGED JIZZ/CUM on myself when the last solo section started in White Walls.
Its got to be Colors. I had no idea about them till i heard that album and when i heard it, it blew my mind in every way. 1 because its only 8 songs long and still fucking amazing. 2 white walls enough said! 3- saw them preform here in Corpus and they where fucking amazing and they played alot o shit of Colors. OH and to go along with everyone else SPLOOGE JIZ CUM.
Colors. Because who needs weed to get high when you have an album like this?
Alaska has been one of those albums that I can always listen to when I’m going through a hard time in my life. It’s something I don’t simply hear but I feel it. Never before have I found music that was able to swoop in and tug at every emotion that I could comprehend.
the entire BTBAM experience is like slow love making for me. Every album is completely pleasurable and increases in pleasure and intensity with every release. S/t, silent circus, and Alaska are all amazing foreplay which inevitably leads to the actual boning of Colors which just finally feels fantastic all the way, you try to make it last cause its just so good, but then finally The Great Misdirect is released and its pure orgasmic pleasure explosions all the way through, constantly doing everything you like, hitting all the right spots leaving screaming like an animal. The Great Misdirect easily is my favorite album by them, its my album of the year, and will be on my top five list forever. Every note is perfect, the shifts in mood and intensity and perfect dynamics of this album blow it above everything they have ever done imho. TOTALLY OBSESSED NOW
Okay, believe it or not, my wife put Alaska on her ipod when the cd came out. She was tanning one day and had the songs on random while she was tanning. She was listening to Medicine Wheel when she said that she drifted off a little. She then was woken up to the, “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” of Roboturner… she told me that it freaked her out so much… that she peed in the tanning bed. That is why Alaska is the best CD. It is a CD that can chill you out to where you want to sleep and then make you pee your pants. Epic.
Pick a favorite? HAHA! how can you expect any fan to to say one album is better than the other? every album Tommy, Paul, Dusty, Dan, and Blake have ever recorded is better than the next but just as good as the first. Every album plays a totally different spectrum of music. No genre… just a band..a great fucking band. Colors is a full story, a novel front to back. The Anatomy Of, showing the true colors of what’s inside, what inspired the band, The Silent Circus is the heaviest album to hit my ears. Alaska- the transition from insane heavy to the mix of soft and hard…. paving the way for The Great Misdirect; an album that will do nothing shy of move the world… A message for musicians and thinkers alike to never stop pushing and striving for the best and the untouched. After attending the dvd shoot, a small show in the first unitarian church in Philly and 3 or so larger shows, I only continued to fall deeper and deeper in love with the music that is Between The Buried And Me!
P.S. Please play the first unitarian church again… maybe with animals as leaders… then the 11 of us who are planning to go wont have to drive 10 hrs to ohio.
Colors is my favorite album to date the songs are so tight and the whole album flows from one song to the next with fluidity. I’ve seriously had that album in my vehicles cd player for months at a time just letting cycle through over and over again. Everything about that album is innovative and it as a whole is one of my favorite pieces of music not to mention that if I had to pick a favorite song done by you guys that it would definitely be “White Walls” it’s just too epic. I can;t wait to see you guys in Wilmington, this will be the third time seeing you guys live and every time it’s a great experience.
The Silent Circus.
It’s the album that makes BTBAM stand out from the other (guitar)wanker bands, plus the artwork itself makes me wanna smash things.
Colors is definetly my favorite album because of the musicianship that was put into it. Every part of it, the guitar drum and bass work was phenomenal and the vocals were some of the best i’v ever heard. Its just not your average metal album and it has definitely become a staple in the prog metal genre. Colors made BTBAM my favorite band.
This band always amazes me. I honestly came onto them after colors came out because of a friend who introduced them to me. They quickly became my favorite band ever. If I were to choose a favorite, I would have to go with the Great Misdirect. While listening, I felt chills down the spine (a common feeling with their music) but my mouth was gaping open near the whole damn time. I felt like I was going through some kind of ridiculous trip; asking myself “what is happening?!” I couldn’t believe my fucking ears. I couldn’t believe someone made such a diverse compilation. Colors was diverse, but I felt this one owned all over Colors; which most thought impossible. I am holding out on reading lyrics with the song, I mean Alaska almost made my head explode! You get a better feeling and meaning while reading their lyrics with the music than just reading alone. The music really paints the picture which is guided and/or complimentary to what the lyrical content provides. My brain just cannot handle that yet! Way ahead of their time. Best band ever. ‘Nuff said!
Colors.
because it’s not their other crap.
Colors is unquestionably the greatest album of all time. The musicianship is phenomenal – everything is clean and clear and perfect – and the composition is amazing. I have never heard another album where the songs progress so naturally from one to the next, and at the end just leaves me with a feeling of completeness and resolution. Anything else after Colors (except maybe now the Great Misdirect) seems so infantile and pathetic…
Colors is a hour of pure amazing amazingfulness that cannot be expressed in words. BTBAM are GODS, and will live FOREVER. And EVER.
I know Colors like the back of my hand, but I’m still never bored listening to it on repeat. I try telling people how incredible the album is, and it just doesn’t work. But I get my point across. It’s the most incredible album ever made, EVER.
I love all btbam’s cd’s the self titled cd, i love arsonists that song is just so dang heavy! the silent circus has some of the best songs and really captures the soft and hard side of btbam, the anatomy of because they did great covers, ecspecially three of a perfect pair, alaska cause i mean come on, IT’S RAINING IT’S RAINING IT’S RAINNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!! the great misdirect is wonderful and still packs almost an hour of music into 6 songs, but my all time favorite cd is colors, it’s a masterpiece, i’ve never liked a cd ever as much as i’ve love this one. i listen to it at least 3 times a week and it never gets old. even my mom likes it, lol. i love dan’s amazing bass solo on viridian and the country ho down in ants of the sky. they just brings so many genre’s into metal.
Colors is, by a rather small margin, their best album (although Great Misdirect may change my answer, haven’t heard the whole thing yet). All the songs flow wonderfully together and there is never a dull moment for the entire 60+ minutes. It has all the best elements of their earlier work, the ferocious guitars and vocals, intricate rhythms and melodies and insane, almost spasmodic lyrical and compositional ideas. When these things are couples with a more matured writing style and a more progressive mindset, it makes for what I believe to be one of the most unique and groundbreaking releases in both the progressive rock and metal genres. However, I must admit I am a bit biased; I lost my virginity to Colors, and no, that is not a joke. To this day I still ponder about which i enjoyed more, the sex or the music, and I must admit, Colors came damn close to winning. (I’m just kidding, Colors isn’t near that good).
The Great Misdirect is my favorite album and lemme tell you why.
The rest of BTBAM’s albums are completely outta control, I know every single lyric and note for Colors, Alaska, Silent Circus, BTBAM, The Anatomy of. They all remind me of some period in my life, the people I was with, the mood I was in.. They have been the soundtrack to my life for years now.
The Great Misdirect is one more opportunity to build more memories, new experiences, make new friends, go to new shows, etc… It’s an exciting prospect!!!
slash.. (and in all reality) I work with troubled kids in Philadelphia and I love scaring the shit out of them when they get in my car because they aren’t used to real music. No one expects “Time to hate, kill, fight, conquer!!” to come from my speakers when all they know is “imma make it rain on choo girllll, baby girl poppin bub in tha club girlll”.
I love it.
Alaska. It was the first album with their current line up. Dan, Dusty, and Blake brought their own elements into the band that, combined with Paul and Tommy, made for a groundbreaking album. Even the production of the album is perfect. The combined tones of every instrument give the album such a huge sound. Alaska changed the way I look at music and it will always be my number one album, with every other btbam album behind it.
Honestly its extremely hard for me to even choose an album at this point but id have to go and say the self titled is my favorite. It was the first album id ever had the joy of hearing by btbam. At the time i wasn’t very good at guitar but had great aspirations. Interestingly enough aspirations was the first btbam song i ever pulled off learning in full. This had led me into a frenzy of learning songs. I attribute a lot of my guitar ability and chops to learning btbam songs. Hearing the self titled cd gave me just as much euphoria as this newest album. The pure intensity that btbam puts out mixed with the overal skill is something that i find often hard to handle, and more so comprehend. This time and time again has kept me listening and re listening to a band that shall forever remain my favorite.