The Great Misdirect

The Great Misdirect
Studio album by Between the Buried and Me
Released October 27, 2009
Recorded June 1 - July 2, Basement Studios
Genre
Length 59:35
Label Victory
Producer
  • Between the Buried and Me
  • Jamie King
Between the Buried and Me chronology
Colors Live
(2008)
The Great Misdirect
(2009)
Best Of
(2011)
Singles from The Great Misdirect
  1. "Obfuscation"
    Released: September 29, 2009
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic64/100[1]
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[2]
Alternative Press[3]
Exclaim!(favorable)[4]
Fangoria[5]
Rock on Request(favorable)[6]
Slant Magazine[7]
Sputnikmusic(4/5)[8]

The Great Misdirect is the sixth studio album by American progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me. It was released on October 27, 2009 through Victory Records and was produced by Jamie King.[9] Despite containing only six tracks, the album reaches nearly an hour in total time length. The album contains some of their lengthier songs such as "Swim to the Moon" which surpasses 17 minutes. Frontman, Tommy Giles Rogers described The Great Misdirect as "some of the best material we've ever created."[10]

Style

Musically, this album is a continuation of their progressive metal and technical death metal sound which abandoned their earlier metalcore sound heard on their early albums before their Alaska album.[2][4][11][12][13][14][15][16]

Background

Between the Buried and Me began recording for The Great Misdirect during the summer of 2009. On August 31, the band released a four-minute teaser of the album containing various short clips of the album's songs onto their MySpace profile.[17] On September 1, the band played a new song entitled "Obfuscation" as well as "Disease, Injury, Madness" at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, North Carolina.[18] On September 16, "Obfuscation" was streamed live on Victory’s metal focused web platform, VictoryMetal.com. The Great Misdirect debuted at #36 on the Billboard 200.[19] The deluxe edition of the album was released on October 26, it included a "making of" documentary about the album, a walk through of all the band members' gear, and a 5.1 surround sound mix of the album. The name of the record is derived from the last line of the song "Obfuscation".[20]

Rogers has stated that the nearly 18 minute long closing song "Swim to the Moon" is - in some ways - a companion piece to "Sun of Nothing", a song featured on their previous album, Colors. This song is the prequel to the "Parallax Saga" following this album, The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues and The Parallax II: Future Sequence.[21]

On March 16, 2010 the album was released in a limited edition vinyl, limited to 200 copies as clear pink vinyl and 1,250 as clear orange.[22]

The Great Misdirect also features their lead guitarist Paul Waggoner performing opening vocals on "Desert of Song" and Chuck Johnson performing vocals on "Swim to the Moon".[23] A backwards message is included in the song "Disease, Injury, Madness" at 3:17-3:37. It is difficult to hear over the acoustic guitar riffs, but a voice is heard saying "You will sleep with the rest of the non-believers... If you disagree you will sleep... You will sleep with the rest of the non-believers...."[24]

Track listing

All lyrics written by Tommy Giles Rogers, all music composed by Between the Buried and Me.

No. Title Length
1. "Mirrors"   3:38
2. "Obfuscation"   9:15
3. "Disease, Injury, Madness"   11:03
4. "Fossil Genera - A Feed from Cloud Mountain"   12:11
5. "Desert of Song"   5:34
6. "Swim to the Moon"   17:54
Total length:
59:34

Personnel

Between the Buried and Me

Guest musicians
  • Chuck Johnson - guest vocals on "Swim to the Moon"
Production
  • Produced by Jamie King and Between the Buried and Me
  • Engineered mixed and mastered by Jamie King
  • Additional engineering by Justin Johnson
  • Layout and concept design by Brandon Proff
  • Photography by Chuck Johnson

References

  1. "The Great Misdirect - Between the Buried and Me". Metacritic. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
  2. 1 2 Lymangrover, Jason. The Great Misdirect review Allmusic. Retrieved on 2009-10-30.
  3. Freeman, Phil (December 2009). "File Under: Progressive Excess". Alternative Press. No. 257 (Cleveland, Ohio: Alternative Magazines, Inc.). p. 108. ISSN 1065-1667.
  4. 1 2 Deneau, Max (December 2010). "The Great Misdirect review". Exclaim!. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
  5. Van Horn, Jr., Ray. Between the Buried and Me – The Great Misdirect (Musick Review). 2009-11-09. Retrieved on 2009-12-03.
  6. Avina, Anthony. "Between the Buried and Me – The Great Misdirect". Rock on Request. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
  7. Cole, Matthew. The Great Misdirect slantmagazine.com 2009-11-03. Retrieved on 2009-11-03.
  8. Munro, Tyler The Great Misdirect review sputnikmusic.com. 2009-10-26. Retrieved on 2009-10-27.
  9. myspace.com. 2009-10-26. Retrieved on 2009-10-27.
  10. Between the Buried and Me: New Album Title, Track Listing, Release Date Revealed - July 6, 2009
  11. "CD review: BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, The Great Misdirect". Metal Injection. October 29, 2009.
  12. "Between the Buried and Me: The Great Misdirect". Slant magazine. November 3, 2009.
  13. "Between The Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect". Metal Storm. October 27, 2009.
  14. "Between The Buried And Me". Metal Underground. November 7, 2009.
  15. "Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect (staff review)". Sputnik. October 26, 2009.
  16. "Between the Buried and Me - 'The Great Misdirect'". MetalGeorge Pacheco. October 27, 2009.
  17. Between the Buried and Me: 'The Great Misdirect' Audio Teaser Available 2009-08-31. Retrieved on 2009-09-10.
  18. Between the Buried and Me - Obfuscation *NEW SONG* on YouTube. 2009-09-01. Retrieved on 2009-09-06.
  19. The Great Misdirect - Between the... billboard.com. Retrieved on 2009-11-12.
  20. "It's the last line in that song," Tommy Rogers said on the White Noise Metal Video Podcast. "It's basically just about the misdirection of our brains. The first two tracks of the record, Mirrors and Obfuscation, are kind of like one piece of music. It was basically just my weird fascination with the brain. It's such a confusing thing to me but it fascinates me. Everything from magicians to alien life to religion. Things that I don't think humans will ever understand but we constantly try to."
  21. "It's kind of an awakening," BTBAM's singer said. "This story doesn't have an ending, yet maybe. I kind of left it open-ended in case I wanted to touch on it at some other point. It's about a businessman who needs something new in his life. He goes to the sea and basically floats and sees where it takes him. It gets him in a lot of trouble. It's kind of like "Sun of Nothing." It's his thought process evaluating everything he's done and everything he wants to do, what's important and what's not important. Because I think those are the kinds of things that I personally over the last few years have kind of looked into. There's so much shit that people worry about that really doesn't matter. There are only certain things that really make an impact on your life and others and I guess those stories are about figuring out what I need in my life.
  22. Victory Records. Retrieved on 2010-03-22
  23. General information stated in the album booklet
  24. Disease Injury Madness Hidden Lyrics BTBAM on YouTube. 2010-01-19
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