Metalcatto
This review is dedicated to Patrick, one of our patrons. It was his pick. Thanks.
The year is 2005. Hurricane Katrina ravages New Orleans. London suffers a horrible terrorist attack. YouTube is launched. So is the Xbox 360. Yes. Right, the Metal. I almost forgot. It was an insanely strong year, to be fair. Something like a silver age, with Nile, Opeth, Arch Enemy, and Pelican releasing timeless classics. But today we’re going to talk about a criminally underrated gem: Between The Buried and Me‘s Alaska.
Now that this album can drink in most of the US and basically be a full-blown alcoholic in Europe, I wanted to return to one of my formative records. This was my introduction to proper heavy Prog and “Core” stuff. You can understand now why all core has let me down ever since, because Alaska is such a raw, unpolished, yet complex and technical piece of work. It’s almost upsetting how this album has been treated over time.
Don’t get me wrong. We all know it’s a monstrous effort, but it has to live under the shadow of a genre-defining album such as Colors. Alaska shows a young band full of great ideas and potential. Any average group of musicians could go home feeling satisfied having an album like Alaska under their belt, but who would have known this was just the start of a long, successful, and at times controversial career? It’s the first classic of many.
While in most of BTBAM‘s work the Progressive and “ADHD” elements would become the most prevalent, in Alaska there’s a lot of that young rage, that energy that resists being tamed in an orderly manner. I’m sure those of you with two bad knees already miss the absolute steamroller this thing was back in the day, and how this was the final goodbye to the band’s first era. One that I was never on board with until this nuke dropped.
Yet it took “Selkies: The Endless Obsession” to really change my mind. How something so ugly could be so impressive at the same time. I was into Dream Theater back then, as many Prog nerds were, but this was that on steroids. It jumped from the silliest and most comical laughs to crushing and merciless moments of total violence. No other band could achieve that level of intensity and playfulness. Even BTBAM struggled at times to reach that sweet spot it had in Alaska and later in Colors. There’s so much order in this beautiful mess.
The songwriting is all over the place, but I don’t mean that in a wrong way. This would become a style, a way to make Prog. You might love it or hate it, but not many can replicate such an iconic sound. This album has its own personality, and it would become the one that would define most of the band’s later career. There are still some vestigial elements of classic Prog here, such as long tracks and focus on a few themes, but Alaska was still the album where BTBAM found its own voice.
You know well that I hate nostalgia, but when we’re talking about the album that got you into something, then you’re allowed to be a bit indulgent, right? Hence, in order to avoid oblivion swallowing more of these epic riffs, I’m doing my part. Remembering for a few minutes and inviting you, the old and the young who love Prog and aggression, to not leave this one behind.
Label: Victory
Release date: September 6th, 2005
Website: https://sixfeetunder.bandcamp.com/music
Country: USA
Score: A Prog essential!
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