{"id":5792,"date":"2018-08-03T00:50:24","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T00:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/?p=5792"},"modified":"2018-08-03T00:50:24","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T00:50:24","slug":"review-between-the-buried-me-automata-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/03\/review-between-the-buried-me-automata-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Between The Buried & Me – Automata II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here we are, 4 months after Between the Buried & Me unleashed the first half of their latest conceptual work, Automata<\/em>, and we now have the second half of that release upon us. Appropriate timing too, considering this came around their headlining stint on this year\u2019s Summer Slaughter tour. If you want to get caught up, you can catch my review here, but as a quick refresher: the first half of Automata <\/em>laid some pretty damn solid groundwork for the project as a whole. It provided a pretty balanced mix of older Colors\/The Great Misdirect<\/em>-style metalcore motifs with some of the more prog-oriented musical stylings of their last couple of releases. There was quite a lot to enjoy about it, and I was pretty curious as to where things would ultimately end up, especially considering the somewhat off-kilter nature of the concept.<\/p>\n

Given that Automata I<\/em> closed out with the monstrous 10-minute track \u201cBlot,\u201d it\u2019s should be no surprise that Automata II<\/em> opens up with an even longer 13-minute track in the form of \u201cThe Proverbial Bellow.\u201d The song gets started right away, continuing the Colors<\/em>-style mixing of grooving drums and melodic guitar interplay with a somewhat upbeat vibe to it, almost calling to mind previous tracks like \u201cPrequel to the Sequel.\u201d There\u2019s also definitely more of a proggier bent to things, considering how the synthesizer work incorporated works to accentuate the guitar chord strikes in the song\u2019s heavier passages, and there are some hard-hitting passages in this song, including some aggressive blastbeating on the drums that\u2019s contrasted almost immediately against a more soft extended bridge. A repeated rhythmically off-kilter piano line leads to dreamy atmospheric synth leads and vocal melodies, made more haunting by the actual lyrical content:<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease pick up the phone
\nIt\u2019s been ringing for years now
\nI\u2019m so alone here.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The song paints a significantly more vivid picture of the scenario at play here than in the first half, really showing the protagonist being taken advantage of by mysterious forces, being turned into spectacle for an audience, and experiencing a strange sense of bliss in these dreamscapes.<\/p>\n

A brief interlude comes in the form of \u201cGlide,\u201d painting an image of a romantic encounter, soundtracked by bagpipes, light drumming, and clean proggy vocals. It creates a momentary reprieve, which is immediately broken by \u201cVoice of Trespass.\u201d This track is a wild beast of a song, repeating a fast and furious shuffling swing vibe in the drum work and guitars, accentuated by a great dealing of blaring trumpet lines. These big band swinging metalcore passages in the first half are broken up by the verses using equally shuffling piano and finger-snapping breaks with Tommy Rogers\u2019 sinister snarky vocals, belting from the perspective of the company responsible for placing our protagonist in this state. It is one of the most frantic and menacing pieces of music the band has ever written, and while the song does eventually settle into a back half that\u2019s more traditionally heavy in the vain of Alaska<\/em>, there\u2019s still some solid use of xylophones and horns in there. The closing moments get particularly dramatic, with the clanging steel locked into the ride hits, and the closing lyrics \u201cWe Are hollow\u2026 condemned to the gallows\u201d painting a picture of tragedy that offsets the nuttiness of earlier.<\/p>\n