So, I heard about Between the Buried And Me like 4 years ago. A mate from school recommended a song to me. I never listened to that song, I was too busy listening to other prog. A few years later, like in 2010, like now, I listened to "The Great Misdirect" which was released in 2009, so I'm late anyway. Now I'm exploring this new band starting with their latest release, that happens a lot. They are labeled as many things but to me, based on this record, they simply play progressive metal. That would be perfect for me right? Well, it is. So, I'm highlighting this album as one of the biggest surprises of the year so far, good ones, of course. The other good new band I found out about that made me feel the same way was "Stone Circle" when they released "Myth", totally different album but still genre bending progressive metal. Once in a while, a pearl like this pops up and makes itself visible to me, to my eager years. I see myself more and more attracted to extreme progressive metal sounds as much as "typical" progressive melodic metal. This is, however, a very difficult band, in the sense that most people won't really enjoy listening to them, too "specific" and "true" for most "consume, conform" minds. But, at the same time, they seem to be a very popular band, which, to me, is a contradiction. And why is that? They are in a big label and the press labeled them as metalcore? That might be it. Also, I feel you must have a certain musical background to really enjoy their music and understand what they are doing because there are so many musical genres involved and that are being explored and updated, taken aback, that one does need to be paying attention. But, in the end, this is the kind of music I love, music that isn't all that easy to understand or process, music that will make me think about what's being said and communicated, music that will speak to me on a higher level, music that will make me feel different things all at once, music that takes its time to reveal itself to me, music that feeds my brain and stretches it.
Between the Buried And Me - The Great MisdirectAnd they will be playing in Portugal soon too, I won't be able to see them but I'm promoting it anyway. 24 June 2010 in Porto, The Great Misdirect European Tour hits our country. I'm sure it'll be worth it. They are very skillful and imaginative performers and they obviously know how to play their instruments.
