The legendary progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me is currently out on the road in North America for The Colors Experience Tour, which is a celebration of two separate albums from the band’s catalog: Colors (2007), and Colors II (2021). This tour sees the band performing two nights in each city, playing all of Colors on the first night, and Colors II on the second night. Their Toronto stop brought them to The Opera House on March 18th and 20th for two nights of heavy, technical metal music, with guitar solos, blast beats, and time signature changes galore. Between the Buried and Me is joined on this tour by The Acacia Strain, a deathcore band who has had a prolific career of over 20 years. In keeping with the tour’s theme, The Acacia Strain is also playing different albums each night, along with other songs to fill out the set.

The Acacia Strain kicked off both evenings of music at 8pm. Their first night performance included all of their 2023 album Step Into The Light, which saw the band leaning into their deathcore and metalcore roots. The songs were short, fast, and incredibly heavy, which whipped the crowd in front of the stage into a frenzy. Frontman Vincent Bennett delivered brutal harsh vocals throughout the set, and when addressing the crowd, strongly encouraged mosh pits and crowdsurfing. The stringed instrument trio of Devin Shidaker, Mike Mulholland, and Griffin Landa were locked in, and their rhythmic down-tuned guitar playing kept the set driving. Drummer Matt Guglielmo was rock solid, playing simpler grooves when the songs called for them, while at other points executing quick double kick passages, blast beats, and intricate ride bell patterns.

The Acacia Strain’s performance on the second night featured the entirety of another album they also released in 2023 called Failure Will Follow. In stark contrast with Step Into The Light, Failure Will Follow consists of only three tracks, yet the total runtime of the album is almost 40 minutes. The music on this night had a sludgy and doomy feel to it, at times reminiscent of bands like Intronaut, Baroness, and Electric Wizard. The second song Bog Walker featured Shidaker playing a guitar riff intro that lasted about three minutes before other band members came in, which set a trance-like vibe. It was very cool to see the band explore two different sounds and vibes on the different nights, and excel at both of them.

On each of the two nights, Between the Buried and Me took to the stage at about 9:15pm, and without any introduction or delay, dove right into the album’s opening track: Foam Born (A) The Backtrack on night one, and Monochrome on night two. From there, they performed the album as a fan would listen to it at home: no breaks between songs, no addressing the audience, just an hour or more of heavy technical music, from first track to last. Vocalist Tommy Rogers was in fine form, starting each set with clean vocals while accompanying himself on keys, before ramping up the energy and putting his powerful harsh vocals on display. When he wasn’t playing keys, Rogers was all over the stage, and even without directly addressing the audience for most of the performance, he had them clapping and singing along. This was most apparent during the fan-favorite Sun of Nothing, when the audience sang along to some of the quieter sections so loudly they nearly drowned out the band.

Some other standout moments from the first night were Between the Buried and Me’s performances of Ants of the Sky and Prequel to the Sequel, the fifth and sixth tracks from Colors. Ants of the Sky is just over 13 minutes long and showcases the band at their proggiest. On top of their usual rhythmic twists and turns, this song also sees the band weave their way through multiple genres, from heavy metal, to smooth jazzy sections and even a full-blown country hoedown. The song ends with about a minute of harmonized guitar shredding, for which guitarists Paul Waggoner and Tristan Auman took to the risers at the front of the stage. Prequel to the Sequel saw the band being joined on stage by their merch manager Chuck Johnson, as he handled the guest vocals that were originally performed on the album by Adam Fisher of Fear Before. The unannounced guest and the back and forth between Rogers and Johnson really brought the energy in the venue up to the next level.

There was a large gong on a stand beside drummer Blake Richardson’s riser, which hilariously enough, was not touched at all until the very last drum note of the Colors performance. As the band was ending White Walls, Richardson made a big show of first standing on his drums, and then leaping off and walking around the riser, all the while encouraging the audience to cheer. Eventually, he swung a large mallet into the gong to bring the set to a close. Considering how much music the band had to learn in order to perform these two albums in full, it would have been completely understandable if an encore wasn’t on the agenda. However, after finishing Colors on night one, the band returned to the stage to perform Voice of Trespass, a bouncy song of their 2018 album Automata II. This song is essentially a metal big band swing tune, and manages to be heavy and jazzy at the same time. It was certainly a fun choice to end the night.

Between the Buried and Me’s second night performance of Colors II saw the band challenging themselves and pushing the envelope even further. Colors was released back in 2007, and the band has played the album in full dozens (or possibly hundreds) of times over the years since, but this is the first tour on which they’re performing their most recent album Colors II. There are some tracks that the band had never played live at all prior to this tour, including the album’s lengthy closer Human is Hell (Another One With Love), which clocks in at 15 minutes. Perhaps because the material is fresher to them, the BTBAM members actually seemed to be having more fun onstage during the second show.

The entire night was nothing short of outstanding, but the tracks Revolution in Limbo, Never Seen / Future Shock, and Human is Hell (Another One With Love) were some of the highlights of the set. The band is obviously no stranger to squeezing multiple genres into their long proggy tracks, but the slow salsa section of Revolution in Limbo is exceptionally fun. Paul Waggoner’s intricate guitar work got plenty of time in the spotlight throughout the two shows, but his playing really stood out on this one, as his solos were a wonderful combination of technical shredding and tasteful melodies. Waggoner also showcased some odd-time riffing off the top of Never Seen / Future Shock, and his guitar melodies that bookend Human is Hell were some of the catchiest of the evening. He switched back and forth between lead lines and rhythmic chugging with ease, and made it look relatively easy the entire time.

A special shoutout has to be given to guitarist Tristan Auman, who is filling in for the absent Dustie Waring on The Colors Experience Tour. The young Auman, of the band Sometime in February, had previously filled in for Waring on BTBAM’s tour last year celebrating the ten year anniversary of their album The Parallax II: Future Sequence. Auman did a stellar job on that run, so it made sense that he got the call when another guitar fill-in was needed. It’s an impressive enough feat to perform that much complex music when you’re simply relearning material from your own back catalog, but Auman had the additional disadvantage of not having composed it. With all that said, he did a phenomenal job, and was a great fit playing alongside Waggoner. If you didn’t know that Auman wasn’t a full time member of the band, you wouldn’t be able to tell that just by watching him play.

Not to be forgotten, Dan Briggs is the bassist in BTBAM, and he too is an incredible musician. This is well-known in the metal community, though it seems he is still underrated by the music scene at large. On top of holding down the low end, there were several points during the two shows when he stepped out to play the bass like a lead instrument. He took a short but absolutely blistering solo off the top of Fix the Error, which had faces metaphorically melting the crowd. In addition to his killer basslines, there were several points throughout the Colors II performance where he provided keys as well. With a band full of top tier musicians, it should come as no surprise that Briggs too is a man of many talents.

Drummer Blake Richardson is an absolute monster behind the kit, and over the course of the two shows, he proved without a doubt why he’s considered one of the best in the business. Performing the two albums requires that he play a ridiculous amount of odd time grooves, rapid blast beats, and complex fills, and he managed to nail each and every one of them. He would also occasionally play grooves leading with his left hand, and looked just as comfortable doing that as when leading with his dominant hand. Richardson really got to shine in Fix the Error, the fourth track from Colors II. The song features a drum solo section a minute and a half into it, the tracking of which was split among four different drummers on the original recording: Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), Navene Koperweis (Entheos), Ken Schalk (ex-Candiria), and Richardson himself. Richardson did a spectacular job of playing all four solos in a way that kept them faithful to the recording, yet still made them feel like his own.

Between the Buried and Me’s performances of their critically-acclaimed Colors and Colors II albums were a masterclass in progressive metal playing. Between the two nights at the Opera House, the band performed about two and a half hours of music and executed it flawlessly. Each band member is incredibly talented on their respective instrument, and they had plenty of opportunities throughout the performances to showcase their technical proficiency. It’s incredibly rare to have a band play two completely different shows in the same city on the same tour, especially when the music is this complex, but Between the Buried and Me continues to raise the bar. If you’re a fan of progressive metal music, make sure you don’t miss The Colors Experience Tour when it comes to a city near you.