Prequel vs. Sequel: Between the Buried and Me Album Review

By Michael Eager

It is normally rather difficult to create a sequel to a highly successful work. An overwhelming majority of sequels arguably tend to fall flat due to reusing core ideas and elements that made the original successful, extracting from a creative well that has since gone dry from fueling the original, which was meant to be a standalone production. Finding a sequel to a magnum opus that can stand on the same footing as the predecessor is especially difficult.

The album Colors II by progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me is a follow-up to Colors, which is often regarded as their greatest work. This isn’t the first time the band created a concept album that is a direct sequel to another; The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues with The Parallax II: Future Sequence and Automata I with Automata II are two other instances of this. What makes Colors II notably different is that unlike the aforementioned sets of albums, there was a 14 year gap between Colors and Colors II. As a result, the band’s artistic evolution is noticeable when comparing the two.

While these albums are linked as a continuity, both albums have significantly different stylistic emphasis, the former being more on the side of metalcore (focusing on heavy breakdowns) while the latter is progressive metal (focusing on song progression). Of course, that does not necessarily mean it’s one or the other, as both albums share these elements. Other emphases include Colors having groovier rhythms, whilst Colors II is more melodic, which could partly be a result of the bass in Colors being more present and audible. However, even though Colors II uses both a bass guitar and a synth bass that adds more variation, there are times where the bass takes on a more atmospheric role which simultaneously aids the mood and yet leaves the rhythmic section to be buried beneath the other instruments.

There are also some differences in compositional quality. For instance, Colors has unique sections that stand out to the point that other portions of the same songs cannot quite match them and fall flat. The power-inducing climaxes of “Sun of Nothing,” “Ants of the Sky,” and “Prequel to the Sequel” come to mind. These sections arguably throw their respective songs off-balance from their climactic spikes, making the middle sections or other areas of the songs less memorable despite also being well made. Colors II is contrastingly more tame, but has stronger overall refinement in the song structure. Of course, certain sections of Colors II may still end up being more memorable than other parts of the songs as well, but they do not blow them out of the water with explosive strength. Simply put, Colors has exceptional bursts to the senses with the remainder of the songs just being good. Colors II may not hit the same level of spectacular awe-inducement to the senses, but it is consistently great and hardly falters from this state. 

Both albums have a similar structure, having a soft keyboard intro in the beginning of the album, near-seamless song transitions that make each album flow as if they were one long song, a roughly 15 minute concluding track backed up by an instrumental interlude, and so forth. However, the routes each album takes in this do differ, which can be noticed almost immediately with different moods in the introductory tracks of the albums.

Both intros have their own strengths and weaknesses that stem from their respective moods. “Foam Born: (A) The Backtrack” of Colors starts off with a rather soft and quiet intro that soon rises into a serene segment, and then spikes into the high tension feeling that is retained throughout an overwhelming majority of the remainder of the album. The contrast within this intro does make it a stronger piece, but is simultaneously misleading as an opener because the mood of the soft side doesn’t quite get matched again in the album. 

Colors II’s slower intro, “Monochrome,” takes a bit longer to to kick off, building additional layers and progressing at a smoother pace before it transitions to the next track. Unlike the intro for Colors, the melancholic mood introduced in this track sets the theme for the majority of the album, but also does not set up properly for the occasional chaotic and goofy sections in later songs. Though, perhaps the surprising nature of those inclusions is what makes those sections stronger. While “Monochrome” may not have the same explosive impact to draw in a listener, it is a more suitable album-opener. It should also be noted that the closest Colors II ever gets to resemble the feeling of Colors is in the second track, “Double Helix of Extinction.” The early similarity shared between the first two tracks aids in solidifying the fact that the album is a follow-up before it begins to distinguish itself as it progresses further.

In terms of transitions, Colors has a notably more fluid progression between songs and their own respective segments, to the point where it is difficult to locate when one song transitions to the next, especially on the first few listens. This is also done in Colors II, but the transitions are debatably less seamless, which may reduce the immersion. However, each track of Colors II can function standalone more so than tracks of Colors, which would comparably end much more abruptly if the individual tracks are listened to by themselves. 

Aiding the albums in feeling as though they are long songs is the consistency. While the mood of Colors II is mostly the same throughout, the tone of Colors is more consistent, with segments of each song sounding more similar to each other. However, lyrically it is the opposite. The songs of Colors tend to have their own standalone subjects contained purely in themselves, which could break the immersive feeling of a seamless flow as the topics suddenly change. 

On the other hand, most of the songs in Colors II have a shared theme relating to the music industry and relations between artist and audience. This theme springs off of the concluding track of Colors, assisting in linking the two albums further. If the albums are listened to in one sitting, this is further amplified as a continuation of the finale directly as the soft keyboard ending can (albeit somewhat loosely) be bridged into the start of the sequel. The final songs of both of the albums also match, not only in a lyrical way as the latter of the two repeats certain parts of the former with alteration. In that sense, the conclusion of Colors II can be seen as a counterpart to the one in Colors. Despite this, the finale of Colors II has a structural issue.

Even though Colors II has a slight yet noticeable decrease in sheer tension compared to Colors, the additional 15 minutes of content could take a toll on a listener’s focus enough so that certain sections of higher interest may not be fully digested. This is especially the case with the final stretch of the album. After a wild ride of four songs in the second half of the album, the interlude track “Sfumato” appears in order to let the listener’s mind settle and recharge before the climactic finale. Having a slower and calmer interlude before an epic is nothing special, it is something bands do all the time in albums, but it is still of significant value in order to boost the next song. The issue is, “Sfumato” does not perform this purpose well. As a build-up to “Human is Hell (Another One with Love),” it sets the mood and flows smoothly into the song, but that is just about it. As a result, the conclusion of the album may appear underwhelming or more forgettable in a non-stop listening session. That is not to say the final track is bad, it is a strong song, but is not fully supported by the album structure.

The parallel to “Sfumato” in Colors is the track “Viridian.” This interlude is a bit longer than the other, and is a sudden drop in tension featuring a calm bass solo with progressively added layers that build up towards the finale of “White Walls.” What makes “Viridian” work compared to “Sfumato” is not only the additional duration, but that the first half of it aids in it’s own distinction before it begins to set up for the concluding track rather than purely being a build-up.

Colors II has proven itself a worthy sequel to Between the Buried and Me’s magnum opus, preserving key elements of the original whilst simultaneously being completely new content capable of standing out independently without needing to be held up by the foundational legacy support of the predecessor.