Last night, Between the Buried and Me rolled through town on their only Canadian stop on the milestone Colors 10 Year Anniversary Tour. It's hard to deny that Colors is one of the best progressive death metal albums of all time. The perfect combination of crushing technical guitar and drum work, bone-shattering riffage, lyrical mastery, and the oddly satisfying progressive/experimental elements (insert death metal hoedown here) are what make Colors truly unique and wonderful. I have been a huge BTBAM fan since the start, but Colors is the album that they will be remembered for (pun intended)!!
The night started off with some surprisingly heavy metalcore from the beasts of Toothgrinder, who brought a high energy performance that quickly set the tone for what would become a night to remember. By the time Polphyia took the stage the Opera House was almost completely full. Polyhia delivered a wickedly dialed set of cheery but incredibly technical instrumental prog metal that would no doubt out a smile on the faces of bands like Intervals and Scale the Summit. With the crowd now 100% fucking amped, The Contortionist took the stage with a masterful and crowd pleasing set of old and new material.
The energy was palpable while the crowd cheered as Between the Buried and Me took the stage. And while unfortunately they were one man short (god dammit Dustie how can you forget your passport!), they delivered a perfect blast from the past with an impressively dialed full album playthrough of Colors. The cherry on top of this whole night however was the encore with the band completely devastating the crowd with Mordecai, the song that started it all of a lot of BTBAM fans. I was lucky to be there the first time around and I'll no doubt be there the next time around on the 25 year anniversary tour! A huge shout out to all the crazy die-hards in the pit and cheers to the bands for putting on such a wicked night! Check out some photos of the night below.
Between the Buried and Me
The Contortionist
Polyphia
Toothgrinder
