Between The Buried And Me New Album 'Colors II' Out Now; Drop New Video for "The Future Is Behind Us"

It is a glorious day for Between The Buried And Me fans the world over as the Grammy Award nominated progressive metallers have released their highly anticipated new album ‘Colors II’ (out now on Sumerian Records). In celebration of the release, the band have dropped an official music video for track “The Future Is Behind Us” directed by Erez Bader of Silent Flight Productions. Fans can stream the album in full here and can watch the video here or by clicking the image below.

BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME - The Future Is Behind Us

Speaking on the concept behind the video for “The Future Is Behind Us”, the director, Erez Bader explains

“Colors II’s opening track is an invitation for the listener to interpret the album, or rather the entirety of BTBAM’s work, however they see fit. As a long time fan (half my arm is tattooed with Parallax II’s artwork) I’ve always interpreted the first Colors to be about the fading of creativity and originality in our world, and the message that your legacy is defined by the things you’ve created during your lifetime. It’s both a pessimistic view that the world is going to shit, while also being a rallying cry for budding artists to overcome hardships and remind themselves why their work is important.

The song “White Walls” closes out the first Colors album, representing both the death of the colors now faded, yet the blank canvas they left behind – an invitation to start anew. This is where my music video for “The Future Is Behind Us” begins. While the band’s mind-blowing performance is front and center, the subtle narrative begins within these quite literal white walls, which in this video I think of as a sort-of temple. The “sculpture-people” as I call them (who represent the first album), congregate at this towering, abstract painting within the white walls; a holy conduit they’ve sought to undergo a long-awaited dark ritual. Tommy floats past the world, carrying this growing darkness as it blooms around him in the wilderness and is brought into our cities, eventually culminating in the dark sludge that entirely consumes the white walls themselves. Within the darkness, the sculptures birth a child – a creation of their own, and it’s released into our world.

There’s a weird transfer of power as a work of art nears completion. It becomes its own author and starts guiding you to its final form; something new entirely. So while I have my own intention behind the video, I’m forced to be cheesy and quote the new record, “I’m not the writer, it’s you.”

“The Future Is Behind Us” follows the release of previous singles, “Revolution In Limbo” and “Fix The Error” which spawned a brilliant animated music video, paying homage to the 90s cartoons the band grew up watching. “Fix The Error” debuted in the top 10 on the iTunes Metal charts and was the third most played track on SiriusXM’s Liquid Metal the week it launched. Fans were so excited by new Between The Buried and Me music and the announcement of ‘Colors II’ that the first pressing of vinyl pre-orders completely sold out in just 24 hours.

Between The Buried And Me

Colors II

1. Monochrome

2. The Double Helix of Extinction

3. Revolution In Limbo

4. Fix The Error

5. Never Seen/Future Shock

6. Stare Into The Abyss

7. Prehistory

8. Bad Habits

9. The Future Is Behind Us

10. Turbulent

11. Sfumato

12. Human Is Hell (Another One With Love)

What The Press Are Saying About ‘Colors II’

“Colors II packs all of the mind-blowing theatrics, hypnotic clean melodies, irresistible brutality, and clever callbacks that fans expect, allowing Between the Buried and Me to continue their reign as the absolute best at what they do.”

– Metal Injection 9.5/10

“Prog metal cult heroes Between The Buried And Me successfully gamble on superb sequel, Colors II.”

– Kerrang! 4/5

“Colors II doesn’t reinvent progressive metal like its predecessor, but by all other metrics, it lives up to its lineage. It’s the only album to ever recapture Colors’ brand of restlessness, reaffirming that BTBAM are once-in-a-lifetime masterminds.”

– Metal Hammer 4.5/5

“Colors II” is the rare sequel album that delivers satisfaction for the devoted fans of the original.”

– Blabbermouth 8/10

“It is easy to see why from pretty much day one of their 20+ year career they have been hailed as pioneers of progressive and technical metal, but their music has always transcended genre. It is just incredible music, bar none, and Colors II is the next exhibit in the case for their continued supremacy.”

– Nine Circles

Between The Buried and Me built their influential 2007 album, ‘Colors’, on an unwavering commitment to artistic integrity. They’ve only fortified that commitment on its 2021 sequel, “Colors II” [Sumerian Records]. The circumstances surrounding both records bear key similarities, yet the North Carolina quintet—Tommy Rogers [lead vocals, keyboards], Paul Waggoner [lead and rhythm guitar, backing and lead vocals], Dustie Waring [rhythm and lead guitar], Blake Richardson [drums], and Dan Briggs [bass, keyboards]—once again stretch the boundaries of their signature sound and heavy music at large.

“Especially with 2020, we really wanted to give it all we could and show the world we’re still here,” explains Tommy. “That’s part of the reason we named it Colors II. We were in a similar spot when we did the first Colors. Back then, we had just gotten done with OZZfest. We were wondering, ‘Where do we belong in this music scene?’ We still struggle with that. At both of these moments in our career, we decided to just be ourselves and write the best album we can. We came out guns blazing, and I feel like it’s some of our most creative material in a long time.”

“Colors was very much our attempt at a do-or-die statement,” recalls Paul. “We had to establish our identity and be who we really wanted to be in order to have a career. This time around, our industry was shutdown for a year. Once tours were cancelled due to the Pandemic, we were like, ‘We’ve got to write a record, and it’s got to be good’. We had to do something next level.”

Between The Buried And Me are currently on the road for their “An Evening With Between The Buried And Me” Tour. In celebration of their 21 years as a band, Between The Buried And Me will play two special sets each evening, the first consisting of a career spanning set-list and the second, playing their album, ‘The Great Misdirect’ in full. The tour has been met with much critical acclaim with Pop Matters claiming that he band “represented their whole musical history with steadfast technical accuracy and unfaltering devotion from their fans” and The Aquarian stating “More than 20 years in, Between the Buried and Me remains a fresh and challenging entity, and that is impressive”.

Tickets are available now from betweentheburiedandme.com and VIP Package are available from btbamvip.com. Full dates listed below.

Aug 20 Chicago, Il At House Of Blues

Aug 21 Minneapolis, Mn At Lyric Theater

Aug 22 Lawrence, Ks Liberty Hall

Aug 23 Denver, Co At Summit

Aug 25 Salt Lake City, Ut At The Complex

Aug 26 Boise, Id At Knitting Factory

Aug 28 Seattle, Wa At El Corazon

Aug 29 Portland, Or At Bossanova Ballroom

Aug 31 Sacramento, Ca At Ace Of Spades

Sep 1 Garden Grove, Ca At Garden Grove Amp.

Sep 2 Los Angeles, Ca At Teragram

Sep 3 Las Vegas, Nv At Fremont Country Club

Sep 4 Phoenix, Az At Crescent

Sep 6 Dallas, Tx At Trees

Sep 7 San Antonio, Tx Vibes Event Center

Sep 8 Houston, Tx At Rise

Sep 10 Pensacola, Fl At Vinyl

Sep 11 Tampa, Fl At Orpheum

Sep 12 Fort Lauderdale, Fl At The Culture Room

Sep 15 Nashville, Tn At Marathon Music Works

Sep 16 Charlotte, Nc At Underground

Sep 17 Charlotte, Nc At Underground

About Between The Buried And Me

With nearly 20 years of hard-earned experience behind them, Between The Buried And Me have seen enormous success and gathered huge critical acclaim. Their fourth offering ‘Colors’ represented the first in a series of high watermarks. It graced numerous tastemaker lists, including KERRANG!’s “The 21 Best U.S. Metalcore Albums of All Time,” Prog Magazine’s “The 100 Greatest Prog Albums of All Time,” ThoughtCo’s “Essential Progressive Metal Albums,” and Loudwire’s “Top 25 Progressive Metal Albums of All Time” and “Top 100 Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Albums of the 21^st Century.” In its wake, 2015’s ‘Coma Ecliptic’ opened at #12 on the Billboard Top 200 and received a perfect rating from The Guardian. During 2018, they unleashed the two-part ‘Automata I’ and ‘Automata II’ to further acclaim and a Grammy Nomination. Along the way, the group toured with everyone from Mastodon and Coheed and Cambria to Lamb of God and Devin Townsend in addition to selling out headline shows around the globe and have clocked up over 100 million streams across streaming platforms. The band are also one of the only musical acts to have a rare species of prehistoric Starfish, discovered in 2018, named after them. The Amphilimna intersepultosetme (the literal Latin translation of their name) lived 67 million years ago in South Carolina.