BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME AND A HARD PLACE

Though necessary improvements to the masterpiece that is 2007's Colors are few and obvious, the men of Between The Buried And Me (above, nerds grow your hair long please) still are in a unenviable position. The task of following that bastard would be intimidating to ANY musician. Shit they should've run a contest where any musician or collection thereof could attempt a logical second chapter in the BTBAM saga, which would be released secretly under the band's name like BTBAM presents Snake-Skolnick-Nergal-DiGiorgio-Hoglan's Colors II: Taste The Rainbow. The next volume in the series would be BTBAM presents Colors A Capella by the HooM!-MetalSucks-Metal Injection All-Stud Chorus.

Shit let's get back on topic. The last three songs on Colors are essentially perfect, but beyond that, my hopes for this October's new BTBAM record The Great Misdirect are centered around discipline: cut down on weak riffs (the tunes are nice and long already, no mediocre random shit should be making it past rehearsal); cut down on Patton-isms and Dream Theater-isms (dynamics good, ill-fitting whimsy and/or prog robotics bad); make more frequent use of gifted singer (and his keyboard) and that guitarist who is a surgeon with melodic soloing. And no current events shit. Looking at you, Queensryche and Winger.

The above are all so-called good problems; the band should consider themselves done with the hard part of developing into a real band. They've mastered dynamics and timing (though not arrangement), and their work has soul and identity. So yeah, BTBAM is a rare young band. I know everybody's pumping Suicide Silence down our throats, but this is the band that will blow open extreme music. Then again I've been on a losing streak with bands on the precipice; would-be genre leaders Lush and Monica both stepped back like chickenshits. And of course Metallica that was a heartbreaker. OoooWAFF ta nevuh nevuh la-yand!

BONUS BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME FOR YOUR BONER, BUDDY

It occurs to me that my neighbors catch a lot of wild laughter and scary, brain-searing music (and memorable mega-finales like the one that closes Between The Buried And Me's triumphant Colors Live DVD, above) coming from my place. Mere seconds ago, a fit of laughter gripped me as I re-read the above headline: Bonus Between The Buried And Me For Your Boner Buddy. Ha. But seriously, I would never imply that you have a boner buddy, a subservient stud who cares for and soothes your erect wang. And ladies, referring to your dude in such a manner would require a sense of humor and you probably pride yourselves on enduring a shitload of BTBAM so you don't need any contributions from HooM! and ... anyway I decided a comma was in order. That's better. It's probably wrong to address boners anyway. This just in you're a moron if you read this far. Sorry.

WAIT ARE YOU ON ACID?

If staring deeply into the above image doesn't freak you the fuck out, this will! From FuckThatBand:

Attention Wal Mart shoppers, we are now selling sick ass "punk rawk" T-shirts. Check out our music section and look for the sign that says "Victory Records Fan 2-Pack." You have your choice of the following Fan Packs [exclusive CD + T-shirt bundle]: Between the Buried and Me (Yawn), Aiden (Still a Band?), Bayside (LOL), Silverstein (Canada, ya I know, I didn’t think people lived their either), and Atreyu (More Bats and More Eyeliner Please). These are great stocking stuffers! Collect all 5! 

That shit is silly. I remember my rage at being confronted with a huge rack of fucktarded AC/DC pajamas but puh-leeze. Victory Records merchandising division, please put it back in your pants. You're making fools of Minus, BTBAM, and all the nice people in publicity. It is NOT okay to be in business with Wal Mart. Money is important but not that important so unfuck yourselves! Y'know, for the children. Oh look an interview with the president of Taco Bell at Game 1 how fascinating.

ORIGIN, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME HAVE THEIR SHIT TOGETHER

Holy crap so Between The Buried And Me committed a cardinal sin by releasing a note-for-note live version of their album Colors. Well, it seemed that way until you actually listen to the creatively-titled Colors Live -- those cats have their shit together, bringing the epic Colors to life in a wicked 65-minute slab. Though I can't spot it, there must be some studio tinkering, right? 

Speaking of killer live shit, check out the pro-shot Origin full set from the tech-death quintet's recent Antithesis tour stop in Rochester, NY posted at UVTV. And while you're there, click to hook up with some of those horny college girls in your area who want to party. Their faces aren't going cover themselves with jizz. Get to it!

Mystery Solved!: Between The Buried And Me To Tour With Children Of Bodom

My first few days at a new job are usually spent making mental lists of things to steal, distractedly reminding people of my name, and identifying/neutralizing the prominent douche bag on the premises. By week two, I've got the entire workforce divided into cool/uncool and fuckable/not fuckable groups. Though something strange happened at my previous job: I felt an inexplicable attraction to this obnoxious, unattractive girl in the office. We'd established an almost instant rapport, and though my wang was flatly uninterested, I'd nonetheless take pains to entertain the troll. Sometimes it's long-term profitable to put in charity time with the unlucky denizens of FugWorld, lest my vagina-jolting good looks spur a sudden mega-makeover of She's All That proportions. But no such luck here, and the mystery remained unsolved. Until ... 

Months later, I re-watched Swimming Pool, a superb French movie (read: naked movie) and realized that my mysterious attraction to the ghoul at work was because she reminded me faintly of retina-scorching hot Ludivine Sagnier, who enthusiastically bones/is boned throughout the film's 100 minutes. Ahhhh, I exclaimed. That's why. Liberated by my discovery, I commenced ignoring and openly deriding my deceitful co-worker. Call me cruel; she deserved it for laying claim to the affections belonging rightfully to piping-hot Ludivine Sagnier. Some people!

And alas, I propose that every metalhead's complicated feelings for awesome guitarist Alexi Laiho of awful band Children Of Bodom are the result of subconscious desires to fuck both Avril Lavigne and Devin Townsend. Gross. Autumn tour dates with the tremendously good Between The Buried And Me here. 

Between The Buried And Me And Me

I've been running my fat mouth for some time about North Carolina quintet Between The Buried And Me. Hey man -- I had every right. First of all, they reeked opening for Dillinger Escape Plan. After the show, these two haircuts convinced me, a degenerate prog metal spaz, to give their Alaska album a shot. Strike two. The third strike came somewhere between the retarded covers album and discovery that their name derives from a Counting Crows lyric. It was like breaching the bra barrier and turning up toilet paper. Used toilet paper. Stink-palmed, I surprised even myself by pronouncing BTBAM dead on arrival and avoided the shit outta Alaska's roundly heralded follow-up, Colors. Oh what a fool I've been. A stupid, stubborn, silly man.

So we hereby present this HooM! Official Big Stinky Sincere Apology to Between The Buried And Me and their face-blasting 2007 album, Colors. BTBAM joins Rainbow, Enuff Z'Nuff, NBA Basketball, the beach, pot, and more in the HooM! Hall Of Contrition. 

We apologize. There.

So what happened: Metal dudes were telling me to check out Canadian prog-emoists Protest The Hero, who also found wholy justified patronage at Metal Sucks. PTH's new album, Fortress, is rad, I happily reported to Metal dudes. It was at this point that one Metal dude, while the others politely drifted away, told me in privacy that I was to stop being a dickmouth and get the goddamn fucking Between The Buried And Me album 'cause, as everybody knows, it is brilliant if I'd just unfuck myself for a minute. 

Which brings us to today, the day I heard Colors for the fourth time. About six gajillion prog-metal records have come out since 1993, but Colors excels in tone and pace at a level unattained since Atheist and Unquestionable Presence. Also like Unquestionable Presence, the fourth album by Between The Buried And Me strikes heavily and is arrestingly beautiful. But similarities halt there: Whereas Atheist defined boldness as uncloseted jazzletes/public potheads, BTBAM exists in a hyper-evolved musical climate that affords brave bands a needed measure of credibility to get all weird with disparate styles, and where guitars don't just play blinding, they play blindingly memorable mini-songs across passages neither hurried nor excessive in pace. That sentence was long as shit. Sorry.

Between The Buried And Me's Colors, the opposite of crappy