Between the Buried and Me
Automata II

Let's start here to analyze the second part of “Automata”: https://www.debaser.it/between-the-buried-and-me/automata-i/recensione

To evaluate the work “Automata I” as a whole, the release of “Automata II” was necessary, because the sister copies, in fact, constitute a single album.

It could have been a masterpiece, I said in the first review, but, post-listening, I have to say it is not.

It is certainly a super album (I + II), but I found it more of a record gimmick than anything else. Not that I gambled away my salary to buy them, but before starting to feast on the 35’ (or a little less) produced by BTBAM, I was feverishly frantic.

What did they want to do? Where did they want to go? What have they added or what have they removed compared to previous works?

I don't know. I found a paradoxically stale, yet colossal, technical and creative skill that makes you a participant, undeniably, during listening, but leaves you a bit too little post-listening. Too little compared to “Coma Ecliptic” in general.

“The Proverbial Below” opens the album, lasting over 13’, with care and technical precision from the duo Waggoner-Richardson (lead guitar and drums) that would make the earthbound musician crowd pale. The most engaging atmosphere is created by Rogers’ voice and the continuous bass, first from the piano, then resumed by Wager’s guitar harmonically inlaid with Briggs’ bass.

It’s a long track, in a Blade Runner 2049-like landscape, that embraces, as usual, various styles, creating a unique and recognizable one, even though the break around the eighth minute is really indigestible to me at the first, second, and umpteenth listening. To paraphrase Don Abbondio, for me, this break was not to be done!

Overall, this entry seems to me a good sweet, but a bit cloying.

The interlude “Glide” could almost be a track by an edulcorated Gogol Bordello and doesn’t add much, but it helps to break the heavy first track from the best track of the second EP, which is “Voice of Trespass” (which I attach) with rockabilly and jazz elements, fused with metalcore. In the track, there is the evident nod to “Condamned to the Gallows” from Automata I.

“The Grid” is a worthy conclusion, with impactful moments like the entrance of the semi-acoustic two-thirds into the song with the repetition, mantra style, of “We are in this together.”

In this automated world, where we are protagonists of a society that thinks about visibility instead of essence; they say in clear letters that “in this, we are all in it, and we are all in it together.”

Them included, of course.

I don't think it's a condemnation, but a “let's become aware of it” and start from this point to decide autonomously what to do because otherwise the risk of reaching the dystopian society perspective hinted at in the first review, is there, around the corner.

They could have made a single album, they should have made a single album, then I understand corporate marketing strategies, but in this case, I don't agree with them.

At the end of the pair of EPs, I am left with only one album and a hint of bitterness.

It could have been, but it was not.