Between the Buried and Me - The Silent Circus

In the days of my youth, I was not impervious to the influence of my friends. As such, if they were listening to crap, I was probably listening to crap too. Most of the music rolled off as soon as it hit me; this facetious bombardment of new wave metal -- known more commonly amongst my peers as "hardcore". I toyed with this sort of music for several years, trying to find more than mere amusement at the expense of these overzealous, out of control hipsters prancing about on stage taking themselves way too seriously. Yet every band I encountered from A to Zao seemed the same: pretentious, overbearing, loud, and unoriginal.

Between the Buried and Me is almost no different. I say almost because, unlike every other hardcore metal band, they managed to leave a lasting impact on me. So much so that years after listening to The Silent Circus, I can still turn it on, crank the volume, and indulge. Sure, there are other bands like them that I can still revisit, but most are rather laugh inducing. The Silent Circus is a record I can take seriously, but only because the band who made the record isn't taking themselves too seriously.

With songs titled things like "Ad A Dglgmut" (which I take is total gibberish) and "Destructo Spin", it's obvious that the band is just straight up having fun with themselves. There are passages of music that are almost "WTF" inducing as time signatures shift all across the board in merely 30 seconds. It's a head-spinning display of technicality that serves almost no one but themselves. And of course, let's not forget the secret track, which is probably both the funniest and most ingenious parody of anything metal that I've heard this century. And come on, a SECRET TRACK? Who does that? That is so Christian ska band. I remember the first time I listened to the album front to back I was doing something else (playing Tribes 2, probably) when this song cranked in out of nowhere. I remember landing on the floor laughing my ass off at just the idea of it. What was this scream-laden heavy metal band doing in secret track land?

Then there are passages of overt melancholy like "Reaction" and "(Shevanel, Take 2)" that are almost so groan-core that you wind up missing the adrenaline sack-tap that is the rest of the record. I think they might be mocking bands that write songs to raise your lighter to, but it so closely boarders genuine that it's really hard to tell. Either way, lyrics like "My head will not rest on this pillow" -- crooned over lightly strumming acoustic guitars -- are absolutely hilarious. This midway repose is, thankfully, only two and a half tracks long, and then the madness fires back up again as if it were never gone.

The madness, however, is a bit more than simple guitar chugging in Drop-D. There's enough powerful guitar solos and melodic shifts involved to qualify it as actual music. That doesn't necessarily mean it looses the ridiculous qualities of most hardcore music. There are still plenty of breakdowns for the dance happy, and there are still completely ludicrous drum passages that only a subhuman could accomplish. Songs like "Coulrophobia" and "Mordecai" are almost ethereal in velocity and volume, and "Aesthetic" has one of the best breakdowns I can probably think of.

If you're not into the whole metal/hardcore scene, this record -- or really any record of the genre -- is going to be hard to recommend. But for the curious, I would say that metal aint gonna' get much better than The Silent Circus. It has everything a metal album should have -- including moments that occasionally give me the giggles.

Random Nothings:

- According to the Wikipedia entry, the secret track is called "The Man Land".
- The grunting during the breakdown of "Aesthetic" becomes increasingly fun to imitate each time I try.
- The reissue has a live DVD of them performing included. Thrash mobs abound I'm sure.