It seems not even one year after the successful Alaska album came out and these dudes are shredding once again. I thought that Alaska was great even if other folks felt strongly against it. You say tomato, right. Let's not even get personal here. After that Adam Richman incident left everyone's vaginas swollen I don't know whether to hide my true feelings in reviews or go totally shit-house. Fuck it, enough personal turmoil. With Between the Buried and Me I thought that the rapid record churn-out delivery was amazing. Yet in my opinion to make your fourth major album all covers seems a little cocky, pretentious, and screams for some serious criticism. It's like, "Ooh look at us, we fucking rock and can play all these old songs better than the originals and fucking dominate the universe." Not to say that they aren't good musicians, they are, but that's beside the point. I guess this is some sort of an influential band tribute album of sorts. The band got together and came up with a collection of songs that are to them the most influential in the beginnings of their dabbling in the music realm. Sounds pretty gay right? It kind of left a sour taste in my mouth too, considering I thought that their last album was amazing. But I stuck with it and digested this shit as much as I could and this is what I shat out.

Starting out with Metallica's "Blackened" sets the record off in a heavy direction. Of all the heaviest Metallica songs at least they chose an older one with balls. BTBM rocks the holy fuck out of this song splashing their own style on it making it ten times faster and harder. Although BTBM do most of the songs here justice with fairly tight and smooth musicianship, some songs just fall flat. They make Soundgarden ("The Day I Tried To Live") sound like Atreyu, which I'm sure is a big no-no in the minds of hardcore grunge heads. One thing that was really gross was "Kickstart My Heart." You heard right, Motley Crue and the cover truly sucks. It was slow and draining and I hated every minute of it. While we're on the subject of bad songs I'll bring up Queen's "Bicycle Race." I can't believe it's on there. I can't even listen to it without a nervous twitch. Yes, it sounds great guys, but why the fuck is it on the album. Oh sure it's a sassy little bitch of a number with that cute, quirky attitude but for real, move passed it guys it isn't exactly "Killer Queen." Some of these songs are so profound to be covered by an "experimental metal" band that even I, the king of bullshit talk, do not feel comfortable talking about. For instance, the band does a version of King Crimson's "Three of a perfect pair" which when the two different versions are played juxtaposed sound basically identical. I just know the Boneman's prog rock impulses are ripping him apart right now so I'll let him step in for a second and talk about this song. Boneman, Prog rules, God damn it. When Jesus returns everyone will be set straight on this issue.

Along with King Crimson, the band decided to do an ode to a band that nearly inspired everyone, by duplicating the powerful "Us and Them" by Pink Floyd. This is probably one of the best tracks on here. To pick such a challenging song and making it sound perfectly symmetrical to the original is amazing. They could've gone hard with it, but left everything how it's supposed to be. Bravo.

As you can tell the diverse selection of songs is pretty apparent. Everyone from Sepultura ("Territory") to The Smashing Pumpkins ("Geek U.S.A.") to even throwing down some Blind Melon ("Change") only add to and truly highlight the qualities and dexterity of Between the Buried and Me. Shifting from hard and fast songs to slow and melodic to just plain strange (Depeche Mode's "Little 15" and Counting Crows "Colorblind" are just plain wacky in my opinion) yet are great in upping the contrast level.

In respect for their hardcore roots "Forced March" by the one and only Earth Crisis is screamed out with all of its Straightedge glory. I was never into that Straightedge bullshit and if you actually believed that Ian Mackaye was serious about that shit, you're a douche for still keeping the Straightedge vibe going. Ian started that shit as pretty much a protest to 21 and over shows since he and his younger band mates couldn't hang out and get faded. There I go again, talking out of my ass. Yes, I suppose the movement has some good ethics (no drugs, sex, alcohol, and that fucking GO VEGAN OR DIE bullshit rubbed in your face) but really who fucking cares. It's a good song though; I'll give ‘em that. Now I'm going to go out on a huge limb here by looking like a huge dirthead to everyone but shit, the best cover here has got to be Pantera's "Cemetary Gates" right behind that Pink Floyd song and Faith No More's "Malpractice." I even bet old Dimebag would be stoked…but probably not. He'd probably try to kick the band's ass or something. They tackle those gnar-gnar riffs and freakish timings like grown men and throw them into submission like a cop after finding a gram of weed. Okay look, enough babbling. If you're looking for a BTBM album then you might be bummed if you buy this. It's all covers varying in speed, screams and double bass rolls. Like I said before it's pretty damn ostentatious to be doing this type of shit so soon after only releasing a few albums and being a pretty much underground band. But what the fuck do I know; it was probably Victory who was stepping on their nuts by throwing them checks to get this shit out to the salivating masses. All in all, the music side is awesome, I mean really fucking awesome. On a sadder note the vocals have some serious issues that should've been sorted out somewhere in the recording process. But you know the excuse for this could be, "That's how we wanted it to sound." Entertaining covers with even more entertaining Alex Grey (think Tool) inspired album art can only mean one thing; if this big time rock career doesn't work out they won't find any problems rocking the local bar out of their socks with cover mania, but unless you want bottles thrown, lay off the Queen and Motley Crue - please.