My 5 Favorite Prog Metal Albums of All Time (Between the Buried and Me's Dan Briggs)

Between the Buried and Me bassist Dan Briggs is here to tell you all about his five favorite prog metal albums of all time!

But first...

What You Need to Know About Between the Buried and Me

From: Raleigh, North Carolina

First Album: Between the Buried and Me (2002)

New Album: The Blue Nowhere

InsideOut

For over 20 years, Between the Buried and Me have been at the front of the pack in the world of progressive metal. Bold, adventurous, daring and readily willing, they truly embody what it means to be progressive and have made great evolutionary strides.

A lot of bands like to say that they've thrown out the rulebook with their latest album. But from the very beginning, it's clear BTBAM were never even in possession of such a book, much less tasked with the decision of whether or not to finally discard it.

Taking influence from idols who blazed a common path of musical non-conformity before them, as evidenced by Briggs' favorite prog metal records, Between the Buried and Me are doing the same.

The Blue Nowhere, the band's 11th studio album, asserts that notion. It's the first record not associated with any multi-part album since 2015 (Automata I and II and Colors II being the previous trio of releases), again treading fresh territory. It's all patently BTBAM, but the direction the group leans in and the way their shade and color their music always varies.

Between the Buried and Me, "Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark"

Speaking about "Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark," the lead single off The Blue Nowhere (heard above), singer Tommy Giles Rogers says, “This track emerged from the maniac genius of Dan Briggs. The song deals with the dark cloud that is ego, so I tried to vocally approach it with a different kind of confidence than normal, almost like a pop song… even though it takes you down crazy avenues, you can sit back and sing along.”

Briggs adds, “It’s one of the rare songs I started around the bass and that foundational funky idea, while also maintaining a pretty straightforward melodic idea underneath everything, no matter how dense it got rhythmically. I love when we have arrangements that feel like they have a page turn into another dimension, but I thought it was important for this one to feel really seamless as it moved dynamically. Even when it gets heavy, I thought it’d be fun at the core to still feel like it was Prince’s band playing, keeping it funky.”

The Blue Nothing is out Sept. 12 and a North American co-headlining tour with Haul the Sun kicks off on Sept. 14. Support will come from Delta Sleep for most of the jaunt (Sept. 22 - Oct. 30) with The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die hopping on from Sept. 14 - 21.

To purchase the album and get tickets, head to the Between the Buried and Me website.

Between the Buried and Me's Dan Briggs: My 5 Favorite Prog Metal Albums of All Time

Between the Buried and Me bassist Dan Briggs shouts out his five favorite prog metal albums, explaining the impact and influence they each had on him as a musician.

Of his youth, Briggs says:

"I grew up a child of the '80s with my parents playing everything from Phantom of the Opera, Tears For Fears, Genesis, the Fixx and Annie Lennox. But then there’d be the mix tapes on rides with my dad that would have sounds like I’d never heard before (such as the vocal fugue in “On Reflection” by Gentle Giant) that I’d never forget.

When I was in high school, bands such as Pink Floyd and King Crimson were starting to become formative in shaping my musical ethos, but Dream Theater pretty much fully merged my interests in heavier music and the long form dynamic intricate works I loved.

Then getting into live Zappa records in college basically pushed me into a whole new territory, taking things I loved about classical composers into a total bizarro space — just furthering what I thought were the boundaries of 'what you can do.'"

Gallery Credit: Dan Briggs (Between the Buried and Me)