Between the Buried and Me

The toughest band to ever take its name from a Counting Crows lyric, Between the Buried and Me snuck into the nascent metalcore scene at the beginning of the ’00s with its raw, self-titled debut from 2002. From that modest beginning, the group has gone everywhere but down — but it was 2005’s Alaska that really showed how Between was a true force to be reckoned with. The band’s head-spinning amalgam of prog, death metal and hardcore remained lean and laser-focused, and last year’s The Great Misdirect proved to be another marauding yet melodic milestone; most songs on the disc approach or surpass the ten-minute mark, and the group knows how to flesh out massive riffs and sweeping concepts without lapsing into self-indulgence. Or, uh, “Mr. Jones.”