BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME — The Great Misdirect (review)

BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME — The Great Misdirect album cover Album · 2009 · Progressive Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
Phonebook Eater
5/10

"The Great Misdirect" is one of the most ambitious and progressive metalcore albums.

Let me put this straight. I am not a fan of Metalcore. Actually, at times I get pretty close to hating it. Maybe one day I'll like more, but until then, I'll have a few issues with a band like Between The Buried And Me. But what makes them exceptional is the really big progressive influence that is noticeable in their music and their album structures. "The Great Misdirect" , the band's sixth studio album and follow-up to their most acclaimed album to date, "Colors", keeps this formula that has been a winning one for Metalcore fans. As for me, I'm enjoying it partially. Metalcore, to say it in an easy way, is a mixture between Hardcore Punk and Death Metal, and usually there is almost no melody in it. I like it when music has this characteristic, but not at all when these two genres combine. (I must admit though that I do like Grindcore, which is a little more extreme) "The Great Misdirect" has this type of music, and pretty abundantly too. But, like I said, what I like about the most about this band is the progressive side: many of the songs have crazy keyboard sounds, many time changes, alterations of moods, maybe even some electronic, and excellent musicianship. Because of these elements the songs on this album are extremely ambitious and adventurous, much more actually than many bands that define themselves progressive.

I've got to say that the highlights of this album, formed by six really long tracks, are "Fossil Genera", my absolute favorite, where even the harsher moments have some catchiness in them, even though the best part is at the second half of the song, where it gets more calm, and eventually it builds in a very epic way, until the end of the track where it has repeated the riff from the first part of the song. "Swim To the Moon" is another great track, with some flaws, but still pretty much worth the whole seventeen minutes; this is most definitely their most ambitious track off the album, where the experimentation goes wild with the keyboards and the time changes are infinite. A good thing about this album is that nearly every song has at least one great part in it, but all of these parts are the most experimental of the track (can't help it, I love progressive!!).

An album that just isn't my taste, but I do really appreciate the more experimental side of it, so this wasn't at all a terrible listen for me, but I do feel that many flaws are present, and I'm afraid that if I'll listen to the band's previous albums I'll find the same characteristics I consider negative that I see in "The Great Misdirect".
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