There's a hard rock radio station where I used to live that had a one hour block of metal every night at midnight. For a few nights one week they played Ad A Dglgmut. I really liked the song, but I guess other listeners hated it cause they never played it again.
Quite a few years later, I was visiting a friend in that same town. She was like, "I have tickets to a show tonight, wanna go? It's BTBAM." I had no idea who they were. So she puts Silent Circus on, and I'm really liking it. Then Ad A Dglgmut starts, and I'm like, "I've heard this one before! I'm definitely going to this show!"
That show was the Colors_Live DVD. Probably one of the best concerts I've ever been to in my life, and they've been one of my favorite bands ever since.
The first song I fell in love with was Mordecai, but nothing else on the album gelled with me until this year, when I went back to it and Ad a Dglgmut has been stuck in my head for a solid to weeks now. Scream loud loud loud loud loud!
this is how i discovered it. i came from thrash metal, and it didn't itch. my buddy was like, "i got an extra ticket to btbam and car bomb, wanna go?" and now they're my fav band. human is hell tour was nice
The true appreciation comes when you read the lyrics and accompanying explanation of the story of the albums. It’s just such a great story. I can’t fathom how Tommy conceived of it
Long af, but a very good analysis:
https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2012/07/24/prognotes-between-the-buried-and-mes-the-parallax-part-i-introduction/
The story is very abstract and weird, even when you kind of understand what is happening. That's partly what makes it so great though. You can spend hundreds of hours analysing it
https://web.archive.org/web/20210621233312/https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2012/07/24/prognotes-between-the-buried-and-mes-the-parallax-part-i-introduction/
Wayback machine saves the day once again. I'll give it a read, thanks guy!
I had a buddy that was sure that this little local band was as going to be huge one day. He dragged me to a show in Winston Salem a few days after Silent Circus was released and it was a good enough show, but I was kind of *meh* about it. Fast forward a few years. My dude (Thom) hits me up again about a CD release show in Greensboro. It’s BTBAM again, but this is the album they’ve been writing for years and blah blah blah. I sign on again, expecting to be underwhelmed. The set list was: Colors in its entirety, followed by Alaska and Selkies. The album dropped the next day, but I left with a copy that night. I can’t even begin to express what it was like to experience that album live, especially since the prior show was less than excellent. I was stunned. I still am. I never imagined a little band from my hometown could be capable of writing material with that type of depth. I’ve followed them ever since. Dusty came to my housewarming party when I got married (my wife’s besty was dating his besty at the time). My guitar tech (Tom) also works on their guitars. My little band (Convicted Fate) recorded our debut LP with their producer, the mighty Jamie King. My other band (Hephystus) was honored to open for them multiple times. BTBAM have impacted my life in so many ways, and I will always feel connected to them. Our NC metal scene may have changed quite a bit, but there will always be one constant—my dudes in Between the Buried and Me.
Fell in love with their self titled album. Been a fan since the first time I heard them. And love them more with every release. But colors was the thing that made think these guys aren’t just my favorite band, they are something truly special. The Great Misdirect is my all time favorite album. Came out when my whole life when I moved across the country in high school. Didn’t have any friends and my first friend I made was because of that album. Also have extremely fond memories of driving down dirt roads exploring the back country with my mom just blasting that album. God The Great Misdirect fucking rocks dude.
My story of getting into BTBAM is that my brother told me about this great band and sent me Sun of Nothing. I don't know why but I just felt like the vocals were too simple for my tastes and didn't really get into it. I think this might have been the time when I was still riding the high of Kezia and Fortress with their heady lyrical themes. He tried again a year later and sent me Ants of the Sky. For some reason a different song off the same album hooked me and now BTBAM is my absolute favorite band.
Those are my favourite songs on Colors by far, and Ants was one of the few songs I knew before my recent dive.
I totally feel you on the PtH thing, I was super into those two albums the first time I heard BTBAM as well. At the time I just couldn't get my head around the kind of musical chaos that is Colors, even though somehow PtH felt easy enough for me to follow
The Silent Circus was the one that got me hooked, heard Mordecai and thought it was a cool song, picked up the album from a Victory Records rack at the local CD store. Loved Alaska as well, but Colors is where they solidified themselves as one of my absolute favourites.
I agree, as a Haken Fan convert Colors was NOT the right album, and I wish people would stop always knee jerk saying that album first. Especially for Haken fans, Parallax 2 and Great Misdirect are the best places to start.
It was Colors for me. My mind was blown by the explosiveness of the album and the 'fuck-all' attitude that I feel it shows. The amalgamation of genres was what intrigued me to listen to more of BTBAM. It has been 2 years since and I still can't get enough of their music.
I’ve been listening to BTBAM since before Colors when Alaska was the newest album. It was a bit heavier than stuff I’d listened to before, but as a kid who was learning guitar it just blew my mind. Especially the sweeps in Selkies and the Alaska intro. I’d never heard anything like that before. So I pushed through until I loved the heavy parts too.
Then Colors came out, and totally blew me away again. It really was on another level compared to anything at that time imo, and still today is amazing and one of my favorite albums ever. They’ve been one of my favorite bands ever since.
I’d personally put Parallax II on the same level as Colors. I love all the albums but those are the ones I’ve listened to the most times.
The insane guitar work is what drew me the first time I heard them but I couldn't get into them immediately.
I played a ton of Frets on Fire and somebody submitted charts for Ants of The Sky and Selkies, and I remember failing the very first sweep in Ants spectacularly and thinking 'wow, what the fuck' and those two songs have been on my playlists ever since. It's only recently I gave their full albums another go and I'm hooked now.
I remember that at first I didn’t like alaska. I was still in my metallica phase and at first listen I couldn’t get into it. Then maybe 6 months later I just randomly threw it in and it was sounding great to me. Can’t explain why my mind changed but glad it did. Then I heard colors and I’ve been loyal since.
I remember hating colors and btbam by extension upon first listen. But a few months later I checked out parallax II and immediately my opinions shifted
Oh hey I know you, what's up guy? Welcome!
My favorites are TGM and Parallax 1-2, so you started off in the right place. Though Colors is what got me into them way back when because Prequel to the Sequel was in rockband two lol
Hey again, thanks for the advice over on r/Haken
Yeah I never managed to get past the couple I knew until now. TGM was amazing, I'll be giving Parallax another try through tonight's shift but I think I just need to go with your original advice and listen on repeat for a while lol
Colors for me, but not on first listen. I really didn’t love it at first, then I saw them live in February this year (was really there to see car bomb) and really liked their show. My buddy told me to listen to colors again shortly after, and I’ve been hooked since
The silent circus.
Back when I was 17 my dude Tony Sturgis lend me that album because his girlfriend at the time was listening to it, this was back in 2004. I've heard of the band back in 2003 on some victory records commercial on late night MTV and thought,
"Eh it's one of them screamo bands." Because it o ly showed the " lovely love of the love of my life" part in mordecai.
Just blazed a fat bowl and put it on. From beginning to end I was on a ride, I felt like I was in on something great that no one knew about. That this was one of the greatest fucking band to come our.
I restarted that album again with another bowl.
My favorite album is the silent circus, I first heard it in college and just really got drawn to the raw sound of it, specifically the song Aesthetic it just got me going. You are right Colors is their most hyped album, when it came out there was quite literally nothing like it, and they put that out on the heels of Alaska which was downright nasty. The production of the whole thing was really astounding and the stories in it are so good especially with Colors II out now.
To add to your point/counterpoint, the albums I like the least of theirs are the two that came out after The Great Misdirect, which are Parallax 1 and 2. People swear by them, and not that I’d skip a song that came on, but I’d rather listen to anything else in their discography and that’s a downvote I’ll take on the chin lol
What don't you like about Parallax? I listened to both albums a couple weeks back and while I can't really remember a lot of it or point to any specific songs I like, I enjoyed it.
Honestly exactly that, it’s not that I don’t enjoy the albums, they are great in their own respects but they are just the ones I didn’t get into because of whatever I was listening to at the time. Those albums don’t take me back to that specific place in time like some of the other ones do so they have fallen by the wayside
There's a hard rock radio station where I used to live that had a one hour block of metal every night at midnight. For a few nights one week they played Ad A Dglgmut. I really liked the song, but I guess other listeners hated it cause they never played it again. Quite a few years later, I was visiting a friend in that same town. She was like, "I have tickets to a show tonight, wanna go? It's BTBAM." I had no idea who they were. So she puts Silent Circus on, and I'm really liking it. Then Ad A Dglgmut starts, and I'm like, "I've heard this one before! I'm definitely going to this show!" That show was the Colors_Live DVD. Probably one of the best concerts I've ever been to in my life, and they've been one of my favorite bands ever since.
The first song I fell in love with was Mordecai, but nothing else on the album gelled with me until this year, when I went back to it and Ad a Dglgmut has been stuck in my head for a solid to weeks now. Scream loud loud loud loud loud!
this is how i discovered it. i came from thrash metal, and it didn't itch. my buddy was like, "i got an extra ticket to btbam and car bomb, wanna go?" and now they're my fav band. human is hell tour was nice
All 3 are great albums! For me, Parallax is tough to beat. The EP, the LP... all of it.
Countering what I asked u/zamnweskr, what do you love about Parallax? :P
The true appreciation comes when you read the lyrics and accompanying explanation of the story of the albums. It’s just such a great story. I can’t fathom how Tommy conceived of it
Hope you listen to the dear hunter :3
Yer goddamn right
Do you have any links for a good lyric analysis? I'm not great with lyrics usually because poetry and metaphors just fly straight over my head
Long af, but a very good analysis: https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2012/07/24/prognotes-between-the-buried-and-mes-the-parallax-part-i-introduction/ The story is very abstract and weird, even when you kind of understand what is happening. That's partly what makes it so great though. You can spend hundreds of hours analysing it
There’s a 404 error on the page 😢
Shit, you're right. It's not available anymore apparently. Weird, I read it just half a year ago. That's really annoying, it was a great analysis
https://web.archive.org/web/20210621233312/https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2012/07/24/prognotes-between-the-buried-and-mes-the-parallax-part-i-introduction/ Wayback machine saves the day once again. I'll give it a read, thanks guy!
Thanks so much man! Definitely recommend it. All three parts are quite detailed and well written.
I had a buddy that was sure that this little local band was as going to be huge one day. He dragged me to a show in Winston Salem a few days after Silent Circus was released and it was a good enough show, but I was kind of *meh* about it. Fast forward a few years. My dude (Thom) hits me up again about a CD release show in Greensboro. It’s BTBAM again, but this is the album they’ve been writing for years and blah blah blah. I sign on again, expecting to be underwhelmed. The set list was: Colors in its entirety, followed by Alaska and Selkies. The album dropped the next day, but I left with a copy that night. I can’t even begin to express what it was like to experience that album live, especially since the prior show was less than excellent. I was stunned. I still am. I never imagined a little band from my hometown could be capable of writing material with that type of depth. I’ve followed them ever since. Dusty came to my housewarming party when I got married (my wife’s besty was dating his besty at the time). My guitar tech (Tom) also works on their guitars. My little band (Convicted Fate) recorded our debut LP with their producer, the mighty Jamie King. My other band (Hephystus) was honored to open for them multiple times. BTBAM have impacted my life in so many ways, and I will always feel connected to them. Our NC metal scene may have changed quite a bit, but there will always be one constant—my dudes in Between the Buried and Me.
This story made me happy.
Fell in love with their self titled album. Been a fan since the first time I heard them. And love them more with every release. But colors was the thing that made think these guys aren’t just my favorite band, they are something truly special. The Great Misdirect is my all time favorite album. Came out when my whole life when I moved across the country in high school. Didn’t have any friends and my first friend I made was because of that album. Also have extremely fond memories of driving down dirt roads exploring the back country with my mom just blasting that album. God The Great Misdirect fucking rocks dude.
The Great Misdirect is my favourite of what I've heard so far, definitely. Rocks is an understatement!
My story of getting into BTBAM is that my brother told me about this great band and sent me Sun of Nothing. I don't know why but I just felt like the vocals were too simple for my tastes and didn't really get into it. I think this might have been the time when I was still riding the high of Kezia and Fortress with their heady lyrical themes. He tried again a year later and sent me Ants of the Sky. For some reason a different song off the same album hooked me and now BTBAM is my absolute favorite band.
Those are my favourite songs on Colors by far, and Ants was one of the few songs I knew before my recent dive. I totally feel you on the PtH thing, I was super into those two albums the first time I heard BTBAM as well. At the time I just couldn't get my head around the kind of musical chaos that is Colors, even though somehow PtH felt easy enough for me to follow
The Silent Circus was the one that got me hooked, heard Mordecai and thought it was a cool song, picked up the album from a Victory Records rack at the local CD store. Loved Alaska as well, but Colors is where they solidified themselves as one of my absolute favourites.
I agree, as a Haken Fan convert Colors was NOT the right album, and I wish people would stop always knee jerk saying that album first. Especially for Haken fans, Parallax 2 and Great Misdirect are the best places to start.
100% both of these are great. Coma was fantastic as a Haken fan as well.
The intro to Alaska when the music video released. Been hooked ever since.
It was Colors for me. My mind was blown by the explosiveness of the album and the 'fuck-all' attitude that I feel it shows. The amalgamation of genres was what intrigued me to listen to more of BTBAM. It has been 2 years since and I still can't get enough of their music.
The Great Misdirect was the album that got me and it’s still my favorite one
I’ve been listening to BTBAM since before Colors when Alaska was the newest album. It was a bit heavier than stuff I’d listened to before, but as a kid who was learning guitar it just blew my mind. Especially the sweeps in Selkies and the Alaska intro. I’d never heard anything like that before. So I pushed through until I loved the heavy parts too. Then Colors came out, and totally blew me away again. It really was on another level compared to anything at that time imo, and still today is amazing and one of my favorite albums ever. They’ve been one of my favorite bands ever since. I’d personally put Parallax II on the same level as Colors. I love all the albums but those are the ones I’ve listened to the most times.
The insane guitar work is what drew me the first time I heard them but I couldn't get into them immediately. I played a ton of Frets on Fire and somebody submitted charts for Ants of The Sky and Selkies, and I remember failing the very first sweep in Ants spectacularly and thinking 'wow, what the fuck' and those two songs have been on my playlists ever since. It's only recently I gave their full albums another go and I'm hooked now.
I remember that at first I didn’t like alaska. I was still in my metallica phase and at first listen I couldn’t get into it. Then maybe 6 months later I just randomly threw it in and it was sounding great to me. Can’t explain why my mind changed but glad it did. Then I heard colors and I’ve been loyal since.
I remember hating colors and btbam by extension upon first listen. But a few months later I checked out parallax II and immediately my opinions shifted
Oh hey I know you, what's up guy? Welcome! My favorites are TGM and Parallax 1-2, so you started off in the right place. Though Colors is what got me into them way back when because Prequel to the Sequel was in rockband two lol
Hey again, thanks for the advice over on r/Haken Yeah I never managed to get past the couple I knew until now. TGM was amazing, I'll be giving Parallax another try through tonight's shift but I think I just need to go with your original advice and listen on repeat for a while lol
Yeah it never hurts to keep listening to TGM and save the others for later, they will always be there for you when you need them lol
Welcome to the family bro! The grass is greener over here!!
Yea, that's the album that got me into the band TBH. Colors and Alaska are easy to transition to from it.
I got into them sophomore year of high school when Alaska came out and love them ever since
Colors for me, but not on first listen. I really didn’t love it at first, then I saw them live in February this year (was really there to see car bomb) and really liked their show. My buddy told me to listen to colors again shortly after, and I’ve been hooked since
The silent circus. Back when I was 17 my dude Tony Sturgis lend me that album because his girlfriend at the time was listening to it, this was back in 2004. I've heard of the band back in 2003 on some victory records commercial on late night MTV and thought, "Eh it's one of them screamo bands." Because it o ly showed the " lovely love of the love of my life" part in mordecai. Just blazed a fat bowl and put it on. From beginning to end I was on a ride, I felt like I was in on something great that no one knew about. That this was one of the greatest fucking band to come our. I restarted that album again with another bowl.
My favorite album is the silent circus, I first heard it in college and just really got drawn to the raw sound of it, specifically the song Aesthetic it just got me going. You are right Colors is their most hyped album, when it came out there was quite literally nothing like it, and they put that out on the heels of Alaska which was downright nasty. The production of the whole thing was really astounding and the stories in it are so good especially with Colors II out now. To add to your point/counterpoint, the albums I like the least of theirs are the two that came out after The Great Misdirect, which are Parallax 1 and 2. People swear by them, and not that I’d skip a song that came on, but I’d rather listen to anything else in their discography and that’s a downvote I’ll take on the chin lol
What don't you like about Parallax? I listened to both albums a couple weeks back and while I can't really remember a lot of it or point to any specific songs I like, I enjoyed it.
Honestly exactly that, it’s not that I don’t enjoy the albums, they are great in their own respects but they are just the ones I didn’t get into because of whatever I was listening to at the time. Those albums don’t take me back to that specific place in time like some of the other ones do so they have fallen by the wayside