COLORS

Between the Buried and Me's 2007 release Colors is the band's most diverse, and best work yet. Mike Portnoy (drummer of Progressive Metal band Dream Theater) named this his favorite album of 2007, and for very good reasons, I do as well. On first listen, I was a bit skeptical, and did not love it, but it grew on me like no album has before. The album flows amazingly, the technicality of the band is superb, you never feel bored for split second while listening, the album is always progressing, changing, and staying fresh. Not one riff is played too long, or gets to repetitive a bit.

This album starts off beautifaly with a piano intro and clean vocal section from frontman Tommy Rogers. About one minute into the song, the entire band comes in, and so begins this epic album. I'll Just Keep Waiting, You'll Just Keep Waiting starts off both parts A and B of Foam Born the opening track, seperated into two. Not extremely technical, but it doesn't have to be. A perfect beginning to the masterpiece that is Colors.

The next track Informal Gluttony for me is the weakest on the album, and it is still a great track. The beginning of the track is perfect evidence for the diversity of this album: what seems like an african tribal sort of influence as the vocals chant WHO HA, WHO HA repetidly. It doesn't stay that way though, going right back to the signature Between the Buried and Me metal sound. It's still not amazingly technical, but it has a great flow to it.

A drum intro begins the next track, Sun of Nothing. About 3 and half minutes into the song there is some sort of a break from the music, with what sounds like children in the background singing la, la, la repeditly over Tommy's keyboard, a bit silly, but at the same time: brilliant. I am floating, I am floating the vocals say about 6 minutes in, over a very nice clean guitar passage. Talking to various people and reading various reviews I found that even those who do not like the band, or album loved the clean guitar parts and vocal parts. The clean vocals continue until about a minute to go in the track, the rest is the signature sound of colors: Tommy's growl over the brutal, yet extremely technical music the band is producing.

This track flows right into the next, once again, beautifly, where Paul Waggoner shows off his playing capability a bit. About one minute into the track, the music is stopped by piano chords, to go right into a classical influence many wouldn't recognize considered it is played through a high gain guitar. Paul Waggoner plays a David Gilmour influenced blues solo about 3:50 into the track, once again showing the diversity this record contains. This is once again followed by the signature BTBAM riffage until about 9:45 into the track, where comes in the soothing sound of Paul Waggoner's clean guitar, under Tommy's clean vocals. This goes directly into another guitar solo, very soothing to the ears, and then all of a sudden the track takes a shocking turn into a country influence, which goes into Tommy's growl over a classic influence (once again disguised because of the electric guitar it is played on).

Not as smooth a transition as the first few, but still good nonetheless, this track goes into Prequel to the Sequel, one of my personal favorite parts of the record. This is really where the band shows off its playing capability and skill. After about 5 minutes of the band's most technical work thusfar, the track takes a rather weird turn, I cannot quite identify the genre of music you would describe it as, but it's still another piece of evidence for the album's diversity. This goes on for about one minute before going right back into the entire band.

The end makes the perfect transition into the next track, one of the shortest Viridian. The entire track is a beautiful bass solo over clean guitars, played by Dan Briggs.

As the bass stops, the music gets continuosly louder and a bit more intense, going directly into the final track on this album White Walls. This is probably my favorite track on the album. It contains the most inspiring lyrics of all the tracks, also the music is once again very technical, and it flows great. About 5:15 into it, this intense music is substitued with Tommy's clean vocals: Step back, step back, step back over a clean guitar. My heart starts to beat extremely fast as Tommy's whisper Step out of this closed off circle gradually turns more angry, until the point where he is once again growling. The music grows even more intense until it hits it's climax as Tommy growls WHITE WALLS! repeditly over the band. The vocals end here but the music continues for about another 4 minutes, eventually going into a piano by itself, very similar to the beginning of the album, where (if you start the album over) it flows right back into the first track. A never ending epic.

Once again, at first listen I was skeptical, but this album grew on me each listen, until the point it is at now, one of my favorites of all time. A prog masterpiece, very diverse, always changing, never repetitive at all. The 5 star rating is only right. You'll find yourself listening over and over again.