via//chicago

via//chicago@random: Between the Buried and Me - "Alaska"

The first in an ongoing series in which I cue up a song at random from my iTunes library and write a little bit about it, then post the track for you to evaluate for yourself.

Between the Buried and Me is one of the bands I discovered in last year in the midst of my re-introduction to the metal world that I had ignored for so long. I'd come across albums by these guys quite a bit over the past couple of years, but thanks to them being on Victory and constantly put on display next to bands like Hawthorne Heights and Aiden I'd always dismissed them as mediocre nu-emo for the mall set, weak metalcore for the Hot Topic set, or some dreadful combination of the two. Oh how wrong I can be. BtBaM has to be one of the more refreshing young metal bands working right now, pounding out a vicious strain of "math-metal" that combines the brutal with the intricate. Thanks to a tip from the always on point Adrien Begrand over at Basement Galaxy, I picked up this disc and was very glad I did. BtBaM tears through this tight set, mixing and matching nearly all types of heavy metal into an virtual sonic maelstrom.

"Alaksa" kicks off with an intricate riff that shimmies and shreds while drummer Blake Richardson pounds the hell out of his kit. Sound good? Then all hell breaks loose. The rhythm and guitars swirl into a demon possessed and Tommy Rogers' death metal vocals kick in full bore. The resulting mess beats you about the head and face with a thirty-pound hammer named "INTENSE" before stomping around in a primordial swamp while machine-gun bursts explode all around. The best moment comes about a minute and a half in when all the instruments suddenly drop out, a triangle is struck once, and hell explodes all over again. Give a listen for yourself, but for those of you unaccustomed to metal's aural assault - you might want to wait until after that first cup of coffee.

Between the Buried and Me - "Alaska" (taken from Alaksa)