Between the Buried and Me: The Great Misdirect

Topping Colors was impossible, but they swung for the fences anyway and hit one out of the park.

Every now and then, I come across an album that completely changes the way I think about music. That was the case with Between the Buried and Me’s second album, The Silent Circus.

Recommended by a classmate my senior year of high school, The Silent Circus was unlike any metal album I’d heard before. A metalcore album at heart, it seamlessly blended progressive metal and death metal, taking you in a new direction every time you blinked.

After having my mind blown, I picked up their self-titled debut and would buy their third album, Alaska, the day it came out. Each of these projects are not only vastly different from one another, but make it clear BTBAM had no plans of sitting still, growing with each album and pushing themselves to give us a better listening experience than the last.

Their fourth album, Colors, was an absolute gamechanger. Not only did it see the band lean into their progressive metal side more than ever, it pushed the boundaries of progressive metal itself. Essentially one long song divided into eight tracks, Colors is an hourlong mindfuck that never lets up in terms of keeping you engaged, with curveballs coming at you like you’re in a spaceship going 10,000mph dodging one asteroid after another.

Colors was the album that made the progressive metal world recognize Between the Buried and Me, but it was their follow-up album, The Great Misdirect, that let everyone know BTBAM was here to stay.

After the calm-before-the-storm opener “Mirrors,” we’re immediately catapulted into madness with “Obfuscation,” a song that shifts from one brutal moment to the next at breakneck speed. But just over halfway through, the bridge kicks in, and the groove that bassist Dan Briggs and drummer Blake Richardson lay down is not only hypnotic, but is also a solid foundation for lead guitarist Paul Waggoner to shine. It’s not the most technical moment on the album, nor is it the heaviest, but it’s the most captivating, especially when it culminates in a monster breakdown.

The two songs that follow, “Disease, Injury, Madness” and “Fossil Genera (A Feed from Cloud Mountain),” are both roller coasters, to put it mildly. The blast beats that open the former make for one of the most intense openings on any BTBAM song, while the lounge music-inspired intro on the latter see the band at their strangest. Throughout both tracks, we’re jerked around as BTBAM hits us with hardcore punk, psychedelic rock, blues, and, yes, an audio drop of a neighing horse. The final act in “Fossil…” slows things down with acoustic guitars while Waggoner noodles on lead guitar and vocalist Tommy Rogers gives a beautiful performance.

This final act is a smooth transition into “Desert of Song” where, for the first time, we get lead vocals from Waggoner, whose Johnny Cash-esque singing voice fits perfectly over this acoustic number. It feels as though you’re listening to him sing by a campfire before the rest of the band enters and helps conclude the song with somewhat of a grandiose finish.

Finally, there’s closer “Swim to the Moon.” Clocking in at nearly eighteen minutes, it’s BTBAM’s longest song to date. But time is a construct when listening to BTBAM — they know how to keep you on the edge of your seat no matter a song’s length.

Despite the fact that it pulls you in so many directions, there’s actually a hook(!) that makes this track one of the more structured in their catalog. And midway through, the band hits us with passage after passage after passage of both guitar and synthesizer solos. (I’m reminded of the second half of Megadeth’s “Hangar 18” where Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman rip solo after solo.) And before you know it, the song and album come to a close, leaving you winded but wanting more.

After The Great Misdirect, Between the Buried and Me went in a direction that never resonated with me. While the performances and technicality remain fantastic, something has been missing — it feels like they’ve been focusing more on the flashiness than the actual songwriting. Albums like Colors and The Great Misdirect are challenging, yes. But there are plenty of memorable moments that keep you coming back. And before you know it, these sagas fly by as fast as something you’d hear on rock radio stations.

Check out my playlist below! You’ll find some of my favorite BTBAM songs as well as songs by other artists I’ve covered.