Between the Buried and Me are turning up the volume and bending space-time again with their newest release, “Absent Thereafter,” a mind-bending track that offers a second taste of their upcoming album ‘The Blue Nowhere,’ out now via InsideOutMusic. It’s everything fans love about the North Carolina prog-metal pioneers: ambitious, fearless, and impossible to pin down.
Vocalist Tommy Rogers calls “Absent Thereafter” the quintessential BTBAM song. “To me, ‘Absent Thereafter’ feels like the quintessential BTBAM song – fun, intense, spacy, and still f***ing heavy,” he says. “I like to think it takes the listener on an unexpected journey, with ear candy waiting around every corner. It’s a deeper dive into all of the dynamic places you’re taken within The Blue Nowhere!”
Bassist Dan Briggs says the new track splits the difference between chaos and groove. “This song moves arrangement-wise in two parts divided by a key change and tonal shift of the chorus, but is ultimately the big fun time bombastic energy of a Van Halen shuffle with Huey Lewis and the News horns going through variations that are sometimes heavily syncopated, sometimes lost in space, and sometimes inspiring you to break out into a do-si-do,” he says. “Grab your washboard and let’s go!”
The band’s earlier single, “Things We Tell Ourselves In The Dark,” came with a 3D-modeled video that introduced fans to the mysterious hotel setting central to the album’s concept. Critics have been eating it up, with Consequence calling it “sunny jazz-funk,” Revolver dubbing it “the first funky taste of the prog vets’ new collection,” and Knotfest praising how it “showcases the band’s all-encompassing range and unwillingness to stick to the conventional.”
Produced by longtime collaborator Jamie King and mixed by Jens Bogren, ‘The Blue Nowhere’ breaks new ground for Between the Buried and Me. Featuring lush strings and horns across its massive arrangements, the album is available now as a Special Edition CD, Gatefold 2LP, and digitally, with a Deluxe Gatefold Special Colored 2LP + 2CD edition that includes a bonus track, instrumentals, a door-hanger, and alternate artwork. It’s BTBAM at their most adventurous, and it’s out in the wild right now.