Between The Buried and Me & Deafheaven @ The Glasshouse, Pomona. 3-12-14.

The prog/math metal chameleons Between The Buried and Me brought Deafheaven, Intronaut and a band called The Kindred along with them as their "smart dudes of metal" (my name, not theirs) tour rolled through Southern California earlier this month. The Kindred seemed like nice, enthusiastic fellows but their performance was easily the lamest of the night. A little too much posturing for my taste. I used to consider myself a huge Intronaut fan back in the day, but I've steadily lost interest in the band over the years. They are still a tight live band with one of the best rhythm sections I've ever seen (Danny Walker, Joe Lester...keep shredding dudes) but sadly, the lack of an engaging frontman, the flat vocals and the monotonous vibe of their new material translates to a pretty boring live experience. I almost nodded off during their set.

Deafheaven- "Sunbathing"

So Deafheaven comes out and just blazes through their massive, three song set. Ha. Yes you read that correctly, but their tracks are like 10mins long give or take so it was fine. Strange, a single mammoth sized Deafheaven song held my attention longer than 3 dull Intronaut ones. Deafheaven just ripped through their material with such passion and energy, it felt like a bolt a lightning went through the venue. Even during the trippy slow parts of their songs, like the swaying last portion of "Sunbather" there's an unmistakeable charge emanating from the stage. This is a young band barley two albums into their career, but right now, they're exciting as hell.

BTBAM- Math Warriors

As well received as Deafheaven was, it was blatantly clear who the headliners were. Between The Buried Me and their legion of fans had quite the party this evening. I've been into BTBAM since The Silent Circus came out in (holy shit....) 2003, which of course was ages ago. They've got weirder and more spacey with every new album and I've always tried to keep up to speed with them over the past decade but their die hard fans who know every word and all the zillions of time changes in their music are just insane. They opened and closed with tracks from Colors, so old dogs like me might feel at ease I'm sure, played a ton of newer material off there last album, Parallax II Future Sequence, along with "Selkies..." from Alaska and a few off The Great Misdirect as well. I found myself at ground zero of guitar nerd heaven, and with the cool NASA themed stage setup and Tommy Rogers' soaring vocals, I was keen to play along. I love how consistent this band is. I manage to catch BTBAM live every few years and they just pull me back in. I'm convinced these guys are all math wizards with the crazy, inhuman time changes in each of their songs. I grew up listening to The Dillinger Escape Plan type chaos, but their tunes are relatively short  compared to BTBAM's epic material. In a nut shell, Between The Buried and Me were awesome and makes me want to go back to college.