BTBAM reflect on their 15-year journey to Coma Ecliptic

Between The Buried And Me
Between The Buried And Me

Between The Buried And Me’s Paul Wagner says the band have been working throughout their whole career to make an album as “flawless” as Coma Ecliptic.

The guitarist says each member has become a better musician – and says that their latest record showcases their creativity and talent without overcomplicating their sound.

He tells Noisy: “I think Coma Ecliptic is us figuring out how to sound, figuring out how to make the music we want to make and making it work pretty much flawlessly.

“I don’t really have any complaints about that album. I feel like it’s the most mature album, and the duration of the band’s lifetime all kind of led up to that. I think that’s the pinnacle. I think we finally did what we wanted to do.

“Nobody’s trying to prove a point, we’re not trying to out-shred everybody, and we’re not trying to write the most complicated stuff in the world. We’re just trying to write really cool music that showcases all of our creativity and where all of us are as musicians.”

Wagner continues: “It’s a really good display of all of our influences coming together, creating something super-duper focused and cohesive, and it sounds really good. I think we dialed it in from a production standpoint as well; just all these little detail things that took 15 years to figure out, I think we finally figured them out with this album.

“I think it’s all been a natural evolution. There have been some hiccups along the way, as we talked about. Like I feel The Silent Circus was a little inauthentic, but looking at the whole journey, I feel like everything has been this natural evolution, natural steps forward, culminating with Coma Ecliptic.

“We’ve never been comfortable doing just one particular thing; we’ve always wanted to step it up with the next release, step up our musicianship and step up our songwriting.”

BTBAM will tour Europe in July, including an appearance at Nottingham’s Tech-Fest alongside Protest The Hero.

Between The Buried And Me tour 2016

Jul 02: Barcelona Be Prog! My Friend Festival, Spain
Jul 03: Toulouse Connexion Live, France
Jul 04: Marseille Jas Rod, France
Jul 05: Lyon CCO, France
Jul 08: Milan Dissonance Festival, Italy
Jul 10: Nottingham Newark Showground, UK
Jul 11: Paris Divan Du Monde, France
Jul 12: Karlsruhe Substage, Germany
Jul 13: Berlin Musik & Frieden, Germany
Jul 14: Cologne Underground, Germany
Jul 15: Dour Festival, Belgium
Jul 16: Amsterdam Melkweg, Netherlands
Sep 09: Nashville Marathon Music Works, TN
Sep 10: Charleston Music Farm, SC
Sep 11: Orlando Plaza Live, FL
Sep 12: Charlotte Amos Southend, NC
Sep 13: Silver Spring Fillmore Silver Spring, MD
Sep 15: Philadelphia Theatre Of The Living Arta, PA
Sep 16: New York Playstation Theater, NY
Sep 17: Worcester Palladium, MA
Sep 18: Montreal Theatre Corona, Canada
Sep 20: Toronto Danforth Music Hall, Cnaada
Sep 21: Columbus Newport Music Hall, OH
Sep 23: Chicago House Of Blues, IL
Sep 24: Grand Rapids Intersection, MI
Sep 25: Louisville Mercury Ballroom, KY
Sep 27: New Orleans Joy Theater, LA
Sep 28: Houston Warehouse Live, TX
Sep 29: Dallas Gas Monkey Bar N Grill, TX
Oct 05: San Francisco Regency Ballroom, CA
Oct 06: Los Angeles Novo, CA

Critics' Choice 2015 - Between The Buried And Me

Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015, and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief, she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories. Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival. In late 2016, Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs. In 2021, she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.