Between The Buried And Me / Haken [Live Review – The Electric Ballroom, Camden, 17/9/2015]
Between The Buried And Me have spent the past decade-and-a-half ascending to the highest peaks of progressive metal. Fusing influences as diverse as Pantera and Queen (amongst a vast range of others), BTBAM / Bee-Tee-Bam are now in possession of an extensive back catalogue packed full of dense and intense tracks guaranteed to induce rapture in metalheads and migraines in grandmothers. Latest long-player Coma Ecliptic saw BTBAM expand their already massive sound, wearing their influences on their sleeves while still retaining the elements that make them them.
Last night, opening act Haken (90%) kicked things off in style with solid and sick idea after solid and sick idea. Hench grooves, ethereal low-key moments, mind-bending and freakishly inventive solos, a cheeky keytar excursion – everything you could ask a prog-metal band to provide was provided with razor-edged sprinkles and napalm-covered cherries on top.
The only potential weak point was structure-related; Haken’s songs tend to comprise a series of separable sections, like a line of blocks, many of which could have been cut out without causing the whole thing to implode. Some would use that point to justify charges of self-indulgence, which could in turn be rebutted with the assertion that if you’re not into self-indulgent music and you go to a prog gig, you’re at the wrong gig.
This kind of debate has, needless to say, led to many a broken friendship, barroom brawl, and post-dinner-party divorce. But regardless of where you might stand in the self-indulgence debate, only a complete prat would fault Haken’s musicianship. They’re a band of undeniable virtuosos sitting on a seemingly bottomless bag of great ideas – and beyond that, they won over the Electric Ballroom effortlessly. At the end of their set, someone behind me dropped their pint down my back – and my theory there is that they’d achieved orgasm and lost control of their hands.
When the lights went down for Between The Buried And Me (97%), you could’ve cut the anticipation in the air with a knife. I’d expected a full run-through of Coma Ecliptic, but the opening notes of Selkies – The Endless Obsession are fucking timeless, evergreen and always welcome. From there, The Coma Machine; Parallax II tunes Astral Body and Lay Your Ghosts To Rest; a return to Coma Ecliptic with Memory Palace and Famine Wolf; and Colors-homed classics Ants Of The Sky (complete with crowd clapping along in perfect time) and Prequel To The Sequel added up to a stunning, ecstatically applauded, and utterly mind-blanking set that was, as far as I could tell, terrifyingly faultless.
The encore, though, really pushed things over the edge. Witnessing BTBAM smash through a more-or-less-straight cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody made a thousand nights and likely ruined almost as many voices. BTBAM have never been afraid to let their hair down and have a laugh – and if you’re on the fence about checking them out on the UK / EU tour that’s winding its way around country and continent right now, just do it. This was, hands down, one of the best shows I’ve seen in a very long time.
If you’re worried about heading gigwards because you’ll have work in the morning, just call in sick and tell your boss you had didn’twannamissBTBAMitis.
If you say it fast enough, it sounds legit.
Links
For more tour-related info, check out Between The Buried And Me’s official website. And remember: didn’twannamissBTBAMitis.
The Electric Ballroom official website.
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