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“Fuck off, I’m full” was a measured response to Between The Buried And Me’s last album, Colors II. The 78-minute opus was a maximalist ode to music’s malleability, sardining death metal, salsa, bluegrass, metalcore, Crash Bandicoot samples and more inside a prog metal tin. As a thematic sequel to their 2007 breakthrough, Colors, it worked. As a standalone, it excelled.
Sure, it was a lot, but each unhinged element pushed, pulled, complemented the next. Sarcastically described by vocalist Tommy Rogers as ‘“heavy yacht rock”, it helped BTBAM squeeze one of their famed concepts through when they thought they were out of steam.
Four years later, yacht rock’s nebulous traits are no longer a throwaway joke. They circle the edges of The Blue Nowhere’s title track and trample onto Things We Tell Ourselves In The Dark’s King Crimson-cum-Yes deck, spotlighting Dan Briggs’ showy bass solo. So far, so tech-metal-jazz-fusion-space-age-DevinTownsend-whatever.
It’s batshit, bugshit, bullshit. If you really dislike the band, it’s utter dogshit. But if you’re a paid-up BTBAMphile? Welcome back to the circus – only this time, it’s less The Greatest Showman, more a carpark funfair outside Skegness.
Door #3’s carnival-esque groove, replete with Tommy’s raggedy scatting, sounds like Korn going mental on the dodgems. God Terror, saturated with industrial percussion and compressed riffing, sails for NIN and docks somewhere in Pitchshifter’s port.
That’s not to say BTBAM have been completely blown off course. It’s just that a sizeable chunk of the leftfield pivots feel wacky and cloying. The random falsetto bark harboured in Door #3 is actively annoying, as is Psychomanteum’s jaunty pierside piano. Most tech-death blasts feel like ironic jump-scares, skits, rather than an elite band’s cargo.
When they hit, though, they’re more juiced-up than a pint of undiluted Ribena. Absent Thereafter’s heavy metal hoedown shows unbelievable craft, funky bass and barn-burning guitar breathlessly Frankensteining 11 minutes together.
Waves of orchestration are a welcome surprise across the album, too. The title track’s Devin-ish arpeggios swell into The Blue Nowhere’s money shot, Tommy crooning the ‘Searching, lost in synthetic’ chorus like Ville Valo chartering a ferry full of sadboys to the Maldives.
No longer anchored to a strict concept, BTBAM had the chance to create islands, each song a destination in its own right. Instead, they feel bitty, fragmented. The album sways between proggy, off-kilter grandeur and ragtime jestery, not quite teasing either side hard enough. If you want the former, Devin Townsend is available for parties, funerals and cruises; the latter’s covered by bands like Diablo Swing Orchestra. Nothing here moors itself close to Revolution In Limbo’s euphoric climes or the bends-inducing thrill of Prehistory, both present on Colors II.
That The Blue Nowhere comes from four blokes’ brains is objectively impressive. But for 71 minutes jammed with ideas, there are scant hooks on display. If it’s taken BTBAM this long to appear even vaguely rudderless, it’s at least testament to their near-perfect catalogue. They’re human, fallible, but never boring.
The Blue Nowhere is out September 12 via InsideOut. Between The Buried And Me tour North America from September 14 and the UK/Europe from February 19 2026. For the full list of dates, visit their official website.
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