w/ Thank You Scientist | 7:00 PM | 3040 Locust Street | All ages | $28.50-49.50
This Tuesday at Red Flag will be a can’t-miss event for fans of progressive and technically complex metal, with Between the Buried and Me (BTBAM), Rivers of Nihil, and Thank You Scientist bringing their 2023 tour to the midtown venue. The bands are touring in support of the 10th anniversary of BTBAM’s seventh album, The Parallax II: Future Sequence, which they are playing in its entirety.
Formed in Raleigh, NC in 2000, BTBAM is one of the signature progressive metal bands of the new millennium. In a time when metalcore was all the rage in mainstream metal (a trend that largely persists to this day), BTBAM was responsible for infusing an unprecedented amount of musical sophistication and songwriting complexity into the genre, showing that crowd-pleasing breakdowns and thought-provoking musical progression could coexist. The Parallax II (a sequel to the 2011 EP The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues) is the band’s mid-career highlight, expanding on the blueprint of a massive, constantly shifting, interconnected concept album they first introduced with 2007’s Colors.
BTBAM has played St. Louis during nearly every one of their North American tours since 2004, including multiple performances at Pop’s and the Pageant and even an acoustic set at the Old Rock House in 2021. (One of this author’s first “big boy” concert experiences was seeing BTBAM at Pop’s in 2006, during my sophomore year of high school). They were last in St. Louis in November, when they played the Pageant while touring with Trivium and Whitechapel.
As exciting as having yet another opportunity to see BTBAM in under a year will be, the supporting acts for the tour, Rivers of Nihil and Thank You Scientist, will be equally strong draws for prog metal fans. Formed in Reading, PA in 2009, Rivers of Nihil combine elements of technical death metal with prog and jazz fusion, with the band becoming famous for its ample use of saxophone and mellotron on their albums. The group has developed a considerable following over the years, particularly after the release of their third album, Where Owls Know My Name, in 2018, which drew positive comparisons to bands like Atheist and Cynic, considered by many to be the standard-bearers of jazz-influenced death metal.
Rivers of Nihil will be playing songs from Where Owls Know My Name and The Work (2021), as well as a new single released earlier this year, “Sub-Orbital Blues.” They last played St. Louis in September 2021 while on tour with the Black Dahlia Murder. They also played at the Ready Room (in 2018) and Fubar, the venue that was the predecessor to Red Flag (in 2014, 2016, and 2019).
Much like Rivers of Nihil, the other supporting act for the tour, the New Jersey-based Thank You Scientist, has become famous for their complex fusion of jazz and progressive rock. The band has released three studio albums and two EPs to date, the most recent being the aptly-named Plague Accommodations in 2021. Thank You Scientist has also made multiple St. Louis appearances, the most recent at Fubar in November 2019. | David Von Nordheim
Between the Buried and Me 2023 Tour with Rivers of Nihil and Thank You Scientist
07.23.23 – New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues
07.25.23 – St. Louis, MO @ Red Flag
07.26.23 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl
07.28.23 – St. Petersburg, FL @ Jannus Live
07.29.23 – Orlando, FL @ The Beacham
07.30.23 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade
07.31.23 – Winston-Salem, NC @ The Ramkat
