It’s the part where the band lets loose, throwing in a myriad of unusual but rewarding detours that resemble nothing else in their earlier catalog. “Sun of Nothing” and “Ants of the Sky” are the centerpiece of the album. And “Sun of Nothing” and “Ants of the Sky” has an even more random division as if the band just had a 24-minute long chunk of music and cut it in half at the 11-minute mark. The “Foam Born” tracks have different feels, but there isn’t a clear line between parts A and B. “Informal Gluttony” begins and ends with booming tribal-style drum work from Richardson, but that isn’t the case with the pieces that come before and after. It’s divided into eight separate tracks, but even that is sometimes seemingly arbitrary. One of the interesting things about this album is that it’s really just one 64-minute musical piece. The Dream Theater-esque section returns to close out “Statues” and push into “Informal Gluttony”. Even the blast beats and crushing doom metal section two-thirds of the way through the song give way to a short, clean guitar bit accompanied by simple rimshots. It starts brutally, but the first clean vocal section includes synths and a heavy but melodic guitar riff and lead that resembles Dream Theater. “Statues” may be the portion of Colors that most closely resembles the band’s earlier material, but even it has musical curveballs. Rogers comes in with a bright, arpeggiated synth solo, but by the 1:40 mark, the band transition to something darker and heavier, and Rogers is shouting his head off by the time the music moves on to “Form Born (B) The Decade of Statues”. “I’ll just keep waiting / You’ll just keep waiting / In the cold…” This only lasts for about 50 seconds before the band comes in, pounding away on major key power chords, Weezer-style. “Foam Born (A) The Backtrack” opens with a simple piano introduction and sweetly sung lyrics from Tommy Rogers. To that point, the album finished out with the quiet, folk-cum-lite jazz jam “Laser Speed”.Ĭolors begins just as softly. By the time their third album, Alaska, arrived along with new members guitarist Dustie Waring, drummer Blake Richardson, and bassist Dan Briggs, the band were pushing into new musical territory. Even going back to their debut, Between the Buried and Me had included quieter sections and occasional odd musical digressions amongst their pummeling riffs and screamed vocals. In a way, Colors culminated in what the band had been building over the early part of their career. And it was so consequential in expanding their audience that the band rarely reach back to those first three albums when putting together live setlists these days. It led to a slot on Prog Nation, a package tour put together by progressive metal titans Dream Theater. This was the record that brought the band more attention outside of the world of heavy metal.
As 2020 drew to a close, Craft Recordings‘ yearlong Between the Buried and Me remaster and vinyl reissue project arrived at 2007’s Colors, their fourth and most significant album.
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