Between the Buried and Me & Hail The Sun

Progressive metal visionaries Between the Buried and Me return with their most immersive and eclectic record yet—The Blue Nowhere, their first on InsideOutMusic. Mixing uncharted musical detours with their distinctive aggressive identity, the band create a conceptual world unlike anything in their incredible catalog, inviting the listener to experience the journey on their own terms. Though the story takes place in a hotel—The Blue Nowhere—don’t expect haunted corridors or shadowy figures behind every door.

“It’s more of a feeling—those moments when you feel alone in the world and use that solitude to reflect on the human experience,” Rogers clarifies. “It exists in a space where no one can find you, hidden from all forms of reality—that’s The Blue Nowhere.”

Trying something new is not unusual for the group, who once again find ways to expand their musical palette while maintaining the band’s core sound. No more surprising is the album opener, “Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark,” which sets the tone with INXS and Duran Duran-inspired textures, even incorporating 90125-era Yes, filtered through BTBAM’s signature chaos. Meanwhile, “Absent Thereafter” is a quintessential BTBAM track—layered, intense, and unrelentingly dynamic, this 10+ minute opus delivers everything a BTBAM fan could want and more.

Between the Buried and Me remain allergic to stagnation, and The Blue Nowhere proves their creative drive is stronger than ever. “It feels like a natural evolution for the band,” says Rogers. “We’re not repeating ourselves. We’re lucky to have a fanbase that’s along for the ride.

One of the main epiphanies CA’s Hail The Sun had when making its new album, Divine Inner Tension, was understanding that inspiration didn’t have to come from a place of despair, and letting go of the idea that an artist needs to be tortured in order to create. Instead, the band — Donovan Melero (vocals), Aric Garcia (guitar), Shane Gann (guitar) John Stirrat (bass) and Allen Casillas (drums) — looked beyond the viscerally emotional to the more spiritual and even enlisted the help of Ice Nine Kills’ Joe Occhiuti, who is also involved with Melero’s Kill Iconic Records, on a number of tracks.

“This is the first album we’ve written that didn’t come exclusively from a place of suffering or pain,” Melero admits. “Sadness, heartbreak and nihilism all inspire, but during the pandemic, there was a big shift, and this is more about retelling the story — retelling stories about everyday perceptions. Everything comes from within, so I thought that maybe I don’t have to suffer to feel inspired.”

Though that idea flows through the entirety of the record, it’s best captured by “The Story Writes Itself,” a song that both figuratively and literally sits at the center of the album. A typically impassioned blast of progressive post-hardcore, it frames the relationship between the universe and the self, and the tension and connection between them, that is so central to this album’s themes. Elsewhere, on “60-Minute Session Blocks,” the band grapples with the notion of identity, examining the way people change and fluctuate, often deliberately, over time. But then that’s followed immediately by “Maladapted,” which counters that idea completely, instead reverting to the notion of letting go of the self and instead trusting the universe. It’s a journey that began, for Melero, in 2020, when he was in a particularly bad place.

“I was going through a painful separation and really feeling low. Just worthless,” he says. “And mixed with that, the music industry was completely gone. So, I was searching for something more for myself; something bigger than myself. I was trying to find meaning in other things, and I got really into how powerful our thoughts are and the idea of attracting whatever it is we want into our existence. I felt an untapped potential that I always thought was there but could really start to feel it. And that was the catalyst to beginning this new phase and this album and that idea of just completely letting go.”

That, then, is the ultimate takeaway from Divine Inner Tension. It is possible to be both in and out of control at the same time. We just have to learn how. This album is the perfect guide for doing so, and as it ends with the urgently ominous “Under The Floor,” you’ll feel yourself finally letting go, finally understanding.