Artist: Between the Buried and Me
Album: Alaska
Victory Records
11 Tracks
Reviewed by Evan Stanek

I’ll be straight up and say metal of whatever flavor isn’t really my bag.  Yet this cd flat out floored me.  I’ve often admired the speed and technicality of metal, but usually can’t stand the vocals and the hollow production.  This album scores well in both departments, and of course offers some of the most technical and creative metal I’ve ever heard.

Between the Buried and me has been on the scene for most of this millennium, which is to say they haven’t been around for very long. Yet for their youth, they have released already a critically acclaimed masterpiece “Silent Circus” and its also apparent that they have built on a disgusting amount of talent.  The opener, All Bodies, offers all the metal essentials with double bass pedal, guitar squeals, chugs and beats in 41/7 time and growls, breaking into clean vocals every once in awhile.  The band occasionally shows a softer and somewhat techno influenced feel on a few places on the album.  This was a needed break as most of the songs are so technically intricate and unrelenting that these breaks were entirely necessary to digest everything, and kept me from taking for granted the brilliance.

Lyrically speaking Alaska pretty much kicks suburbia in the face.  If you’re offended at the occasional F-bomb, steer clear.  If you don’t mind a little vulgarity with convicting lyrics, then by all means... 

Bottom line, its not perfect in that you still have to like hard music to enjoy.  Beyond that, I’m quite sure this is one of the most intelligent heavy releases of 2005.