Review Summary: Walking into a certain state of suffocation
I’ve never heard music ride quite as many lines as Colors II does. The lines between reimagining and rehashing, coasting and boundary pushing, camp and art, alienating and accessible; BTBAM have wrestled with these distinctions since The Silent Circus. It’s part of the group’s DNA at this point. Overarching themes and concepts kept these albums on track, but on Colors II, the contrasts in tonality clash so obviously in nearly every track that for the first time in the band’s storied career, they threaten to dismantle the music altogether. Colors II, despite often being compelling, is a flawed piece of art with no clear goal.
The issues are scattered throughout the experience. Many riffs err too close to rehash territory, with Turbulent featuring the guitar line from the bridge of
King Redeem/Queen Serene that is damn near note-for-note and drags it out across the entire song.
Human Is Hell (Another One with Love) starts off as the ultimate culmination of recurring themes from BTBAM’s discography only to wander in too many unrelated directions, climaxing with the same note pattern as the bridge from Obfuscation. It just feels phoned in and prevents a grandiose vision from being realized. And don’t even get me started on
Prehistory. It’s all the weirdness of Future Sequence’s
Bloom, without the identity of being an actual, you know, song.
The directionless musical sojourns and recycled melodies prevent Colors II from ever achieving a theme. Automata was a more musically streamlined release than BTBAM’s previous works, and was unified not only by its lyrical concept, but also tone and structure. Automata 1 acted as a dark, dreamlike listen which suited the album’s story of a man being out into a forced coma while his dreams were displayed for the world to see. This contrasted with Automata II which had a progressive edge and a bouncy rhythm section to accompany its story. Lyrics play an important part in unifying an album, previous releases maintained a concept or story which, in hindsight, played an unexpectedly large part in giving albums like Coma Ecliptic and The Great Misdirect an identity. What’s present here is subpar both in content and delivery.
The Future is Behind Us is the biggest offender; a chorus offering up the pleasant throwback line of “open these closed off circles”, before nosediving into an awkward “my mind is to blame, what the ***”. Twice.
Colors II in turn never achieves a sense of purpose and keeps an otherwise excellent instrumental performance from fully getting off the ground. The album seemingly sputters to life at random like Saul Goodman’s Suzuki Esteem throughout its runtime, only to die out again.
Speaking of runtime, 1 hour and 18 minutes. This goddamn thing goes for 75+ minutes. It’s the longest BTBAM album by a country mile (1.609km). You could watch Primer once, or Kung Fury TWICE, and Colors II would still be playing in the theater next to you.
Despite all of this, there’s still much to admire and enjoy. In fact, from the opener to
Revolution in Limbo, the band fires on all cylinders. In this stretch, callbacks to previous outings actually work and give way to soundscapes that pay homage to their deathcore roots as much as their progressive outings without ever sounding forced. Even Blake Richardson’s death growls work here, ferociously juxtaposing Tommy Giles’s coarse delivery incredibly well. Seriously, how are we just now hearing this?!
Fix the Error is perfectly placed after these tracks. As a single, it raised an eyebrow or three, but it’s perfectly placed in the track list. There’s a specific point at about 1:15 that could bring a horse to gallop; where the shouts of, “we’re here to bring it down, collapse society” lead into 3 separate drum solos. It’s wacky, self-aware, and the right amount of experimental; sprinting a tightrope without ever quite tipping in the wrong direction. It’s a welcome tonal respite from the previous darker, more demanding tracks. Moments like this conjure a sense of levity that isn’t often found in the group’s work.
Throughout the rest of Colors II though, the listener is pulled back and forth through the trichotomy of aggression, experimentation, and exhaustion. This a bloated affair with a few great ideas, and long takes of mediocre ideas. It’s a shame too because if the tracks lengths were cut down and rough edges smoothed out, this would have been a defining work - a beautiful, shared vision forged over 20 years of collaboration. As it stands, this is another musical titan demonstrating they’re just as affected by the pandemic as any of us; taking a directionless walk with eyes on the past and no clear idea on where to go.
