Listening to an album set in a fictional shape-shifting hotel while currently in one myself is as trippy of an experience I am allowed to experience while on the work’s dime. No hotels were hurt in the making of this metaphor. Thankfully, the experience within this aural escape was immensely more rewarding than work travel (which I weirdly enjoy). North Carolina’s prog heroes’ 11th Album, The Blue Nowhere, out September 12 via InsideOut Music, is the opposite of work and genuinely sounds as free as anything the group have created thus far. While there are absolutely the hallmarks that fans crave in spades—tangential segues, carnival melodies, transcendental songwriting, and riffs aplenty—there’s one special attribute that elevates The Blue Nowhere to a 5-star experience: these are the most memorable songs of the band’s career.
That’s not to say that Between the Buried and Me have gone soft in older age, as the track “Psychomanteum” is a stellar example of their early career sound with tighter songwriting and a bit more free-flowing, well, flow. I’m often reminded of my personal favorite of theirs, The Great Misdirect, in how lively and expansive the songs feel, coalescing into something organically cohesive. The word I keep coming back to is one that vocalist Tommy Rogers shares immediately when we talk about the process (road trip?) toward The Blue Nowhere:
“A big takeaway, we do have fun when writing,” he says. “With this record in particular, we were really firing from all angles. When we started getting down and writing together and kind of getting in the weeds, things were just happening superfast, and there was a lot of magic kind of happening behind the scenes. A big key to us staying fresh is we don’t really discuss what the plan is. We kind of just start sending ideas of what we’re personally working on, and then we kind of see where everybody’s brains are sitting in that moment, and then we kind of just build off that.”
“From there, you kind of get an idea of where the record’s going to go,” he adds. “It might be something that’s similar to something we’ve done in the past, or something totally different. And I feel like this new record, we really tapped into a lot of new ideas, and I think we were just in a more comfortable position as writers than we probably ever have, just from the vast amount of music we’ve written. And I think we’re just lucky that we’re able to be comfortable, and we’re able to really push each other and ourselves. And our fans expect it.”
“With every album we write,” guitarist Paul Waggoner expands, “just the eclecticism of all of us collectively, and our influences, it just becomes more and more unbridled. The Great Misdirect is probably a good sort of reference point for that. I feel like that was a record where we really kind of showcased the moodiness of all the different kinds of music that we write.”
“What I really love about this record,” Rogers inserts, “and it’s to me kind of similar to The Great Misdirect as well, in the sense that I feel like each song really is in its own world. And that kind of happened naturally, when we were working at the beginning of these songs. And the cohesiveness, I think sometimes we really luck out. It’s always in the back of our mind; we’re an album band, so we’re always thinking, planning ahead.”
Writing about a hotel is something Rogers has always wanted to do, though the opportunity to do so never really came naturally. Writing about the road started up within a year of the invention of touring musicians, though nothing about The Blue Nowhere feels like a “touring sucks, I miss my family/pets” kind of record. Instead, it’s a very human exploration of the ways in which we exist and how a trip to a place outside of our normal day-to-day domicile can transform us.
“When I was sitting down to write lyrics,” Rogers says, “the hotel theme really made sense. Each song, you kind of feel like you’re in this different space, each song. So that’s kind of the prompt I gave myself: ‘Where does this song take place in this imaginary space? What’s happening?’ Then I kind of built it to be something that was about the human experience in a way, and all the fucking chaos and horrible things, and beautiful things that happen amongst that. And tried to create this kind of abstract world, where this character’s really kind of just going through life in a sense, through this weird hotel.”
“Hotels are funny to me,” Waggoner adds, “because they really represent this crazy wide spectrum. There’s five-star resorts, all-inclusives, but then there’s also the seedy places all around the world you get to [by happenstance or circumstance]. This album represents that full spectrum. I like the idea that this guy doesn’t really know what kind of hotel he’s in.”
“I love that,” Rogers says. “I think that points out something that I really enjoy about when I create some sort of story or lyrics. I’ve never even thought of that idea, Paul. Of how maybe these different rooms could even have a totally different feel of a different style of hotel. That’s one of the most exciting things for me, is when our records come out and our fans, I’m very lucky that they dive into lyrics and come up with these concepts. They kind of grab things that I didn’t even think about. A lot of times, my lyrics just kind of come out of me. I create this abstract scenario, and it becomes its own thing, which is so cool. It’s just the act of creating art and collaboration. We talked about that earlier. It’s such an inspiring thing, when you’re working with other musicians that can take your ideas and make it something totally different. If we have a thought or an idea or riff or a section, we’re not so close to it that it has to be our way. And I think that’s such a liberating feeling, when you’re working on music, and it just keeps the door always open. And we’re always kind of pushing each other, and that’s how these songs are made.”
“We’re lucky being a band like us,” Waggoner adds, “we’re so fortunate to have just the full breadth of freedom of expression. Our fans expect the unexpected. It’s a great feeling to have, knowing that when we write a record, the gloves are off; all bets are off. We can really do whatever we want, and we know that at the end of the day, it’s going to still sound like BTBAM, and our fans appreciate that.”
Few bands sound so free and full of wonder and fun on their 11th album, and I implore you to check in to The Blue Nowhere. Give yourself the time to let it envelope you; what happens in this hotel does not stay there, however.
The Blue Nowhere is out Friday, and you can preorder it here. Follow Between the Buried and Me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok for future updates.
Photo Credit: Alp Yılmaz
