Between the Buried and Me

You know what you're getting into when you buy (download, stream or whatever your preferred method of listening is) a Between the Buried and Me album. Which is to say, you really don't know at all. The versatile group have been shredding metal's conventions for 12 years, and their abandonment of expectations only grows as they do. The Parallax II: Future Sequence — a mouthful of a name for an earful of an album — continues this trend. The band jump from metal, be it power metal (à la "Astral Body") or the almost death metal of "Telos" to the piano sections and circus-esque music in "Bloom." Unfortunately, this adventurous spirit can also be their biggest downfall, as the poor eclectic sections in the middle of "Lay Your Ghosts to Rest" prove more disruption than transition. But these are minor blips in a record that flows remarkably well given the diverse content. With The Parallax II: Future Sequence, Between the Buried and Me have managed to craft metal that's not just for metal heads, but will excite them just the same.