Between The Buried & Me - Coma Ecliptic: Live album review

Another perfect live chapter from US prog visionaries

Cover art for Between The Buried & Me - Coma Ecliptic: Live album

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

While their previous live album was an exquisite, studio-bound run-through of the galactic prog-metal voyage, The Parallax II: Future Sequence, the latest sees BTB&M invite a few fans along for the ride. Performing 2015’s Coma Ecliptic in its entirety, every note is played with immaculate precision, but the band find enough room to express their personalities throughout. There’s plenty of captivating guitarwork in the Dream Theater-esque opulence of Node, while the myriad sonics and styles deliver the requisite effect. The electronic rhythms and unsettling waves of Dim Ignition and Rapid Calm sound even more transcendental live, while the off-kilter ride of The Ectopic Stroll threatens to veer off if not for Blake Richardson’s tight drumming. If you’ve never had your mind blown by seeing BTB&M in person, this is a fine substitute.

Adam Brennan

Rugby, Sean Bean and power ballad superfan Adam has been writing for Hammer since 2007, and has a bad habit of constructing sentences longer than most Dream Theater songs. Can usually be found cowering at the back of gigs in Bristol and Cardiff. Bruce Dickinson once called him a 'sad bastard'.