Review Summary: Alaska - a stone cold classic.
Between the Buried and Me are one of my personal favourite groups. Their blend of progressive metal and metalcore enriched with hints of mathcore and death metal is a winning combination. Alaska, their sophomore effort, is quite possibly their greatest achievement in my opinion.
Every member of the band is incredibly talented - the vocals range from death growls, high pitched screams and fragile, delicate clean singing. Rather than go through each track, I will say that pretty much every song here offers something positive and extremely interesting. The song structures and compositions are extremely complicated - don't let that put you off though; as I find it is incredibly engaging. All Bodies is a powerhouse of an opener and with the title track following, the listener is treated to a wonderful mix of heavy riffs and guitar wizardry - Alaska (the track) is the embodiment of a perfect song. The sweeps in the beginning are flawlessly executed - everything here is tight and intricate without being pretentious.
But the biggest highlight of the album is most definitely Selkies: The Endless Obsession. Very melodic and well constructed - and the outro is the epitome of pure bliss and beauty. I'd say that this album rates as one of the best in all music, not just it's genre/subgenre. Backwards Marathon hits like a train at first - brutal riffs, brutal vocals and mental time signature theory employment. However, the second half of the song is another beautiful piece of music. The way they weave their chops together and bounce about in a very busy manner is not just impressive but it is absolutely magnificent. They clearly spent a long time writing this - and fair play to the band, there isn't a single boring or mediocre moment throughout it's entirety.
The album closes with an anomaly - Laser Speed is essentially 'lift music'. It is a lovely departure from their core sound and it serves as a superb album closer. Quite simply, I could spend all day/night praising them and using hyperboles but to be concise and to the point - this is a stone cold classic. Everything here is superbly executed and very well written. If you haven't heard this and you like progressive music, I implore you to give this record a go.
