The Great Misdirect

The Great Misdirect is the fifth studio album by American progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me. It was released on October 27, 2009 through Victory Records and was produced by Jamie King.^[9] Despite containing only six tracks, the album reaches nearly an hour in total time length. The album contains their longest song, "Swim to the Moon", which surpasses 17 minutes. Frontman Tommy Giles Rogers described The Great Misdirect as "some of the best material we've ever created."^[10]

The Great Misdirect
Studio album by Between the Buried and Me
Released	October 27, 2009
Recorded	June 1 – July 2, 2009
Studio	Basement Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Genre	Progressive metal technical death metal avant-garde metal
Length	59:35
Label	Victory
Producer	Between the Buried and Me Jamie King
Between the Buried and Me chronology
Colors Live (2008) The Great Misdirect (2009) Best Of (2011)
Singles from The Great Misdirect
"Obfuscation" Released: September 29, 2009

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	64/100^[1]
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	^[2]
Alternative Press	^[3]
Exclaim!	(favorable)^[4]
Fangoria	^[5]
Rock on Request	(favorable)^[6]
Slant Magazine	^[7]
Sputnikmusic	(4/5)^[8]

Style

Musically, this album is a continuation of the progressive metal, technical death metal and avant-garde metal sound the band is known for.^{[11][2][4][12][13][14][15][16][17]}

Background

Between the Buried and Me began recording for The Great Misdirect during the summer of 2009. On August 31, the band released a four-minute teaser of the album containing various short clips of the album's songs onto their MySpace profile.^[18] On September 1, the band played a new song entitled "Obfuscation" as well as "Disease, Injury, Madness" at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, North Carolina.^[19] On September 16, "Obfuscation" was streamed live on Victory’s metal focused web platform, VictoryMetal.com. The Great Misdirect debuted at #36 on the Billboard 200.^[20] The deluxe edition of the album was released on October 26, it included a "making of" documentary about the album, a walk through of all the band members' gear, and a 5.1 surround sound mix of the album. The name of the record is derived from the last line of the song "Obfuscation".^[21]

Rogers has stated that the nearly 18-minute-long closing song "Swim to the Moon" is - in some ways - a companion piece to "Sun of Nothing", a song featured on their previous album, Colors. This song is the prequel to the "Parallax Saga" following this album, The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues and The Parallax II: Future Sequence.^[22]

On March 16, 2010 the album was released in a limited edition vinyl, limited to 200 copies as clear pink vinyl and 1,250 as clear orange.^[23]

The Great Misdirect also features their lead guitarist Paul Waggoner performing opening vocals on "Desert of Song" and Chuck Johnson performing vocals on "Swim to the Moon".^[24] A backwards message is included in the song "Disease, Injury, Madness" at 3:17-3:37. It is difficult to hear over the acoustic guitar riffs, but a voice is heard saying "You will sleep with the rest of the non-believers... If you disagree you will sleep... You will sleep with the rest of the non-believers...."^[25]

Appearances

The second song "Obfuscation" is featured as downloadable content in Rock Band 2 via the Rock Band Network. It is also featured in the game Saints Row 3 on the radio "Blood 106.66".

Track listing

All lyrics are written by Tommy Giles Rogers Jr.; all music is composed by Between the Buried and Me.

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Mirrors"	3:38
2.	"Obfuscation"	9:15
3.	"Disease, Injury, Madness"	11:03
4.	"Fossil Genera - A Feed from Cloud Mountain"	12:11
5.	"Desert of Song"	5:34
6.	"Swim to the Moon"	17:54
Total length:		59:34

Personnel

Credits for The Great Misdirect adapted from liner notes.^[26]

Between the Buried and Me Tommy Giles Rogers Jr. – vocals, keyboards Paul Waggoner – lead guitar, vocals on "Desert of Song" Dan Briggs – bass, keyboards, backing vocals Dustie Waring – rhythm guitar Blake Richardson – drums, percussion

Production Jamie King – production, engineering, mixing, mastering Justin Johnson – engineering Brandon Proff – layout, concept design Chuck Johnson – photography, vocals on "Swim to the Moon"

References

1. "The Great Misdirect - Between the Buried and Me". Metacritic. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
2. Lymangrover, Jason. The Great Misdirect review Allmusic. Retrieved on 2009-10-30.
3. Freeman, Phil (December 2009). "File Under: Progressive Excess". Alternative Press. No. 257. Cleveland, Ohio: Alternative Magazines, Inc. p. 108. ISSN 1065-1667.
4. Deneau, Max (December 2010). "The Great Misdirect review". Exclaim!. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
5. Van Horn, Jr., Ray. Between the Buried and Me – The Great Misdirect (Musick Review). 2009-11-09. Retrieved on 2009-12-03.
6. Avina, Anthony. "Between the Buried and Me – The Great Misdirect". Rock on Request. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
7. Cole, Matthew. Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect Slant November 3, 2009. Retrieved on November 3, 2009.
8. Munro, Tyler The Great Misdirect review Sputnikmusic. 2009-10-26. Retrieved on 2009-10-27.
9. [1] myspace.com. 2009-10-26. Retrieved on 2009-10-27.
10. Between the Buried and Me: New Album Title, Track Listing, Release Date Revealed - July 6, 2009
11. Rivadavia, Eduardo. "15 Best Metal Albums of 2009". Loudwire. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
12. "CD review: BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, The Great Misdirect". Metal Injection. October 29, 2009.
13. "Between the Buried and Me: The Great Misdirect". Slant magazine. November 3, 2009.
14. "Between The Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect". Metal Storm. October 27, 2009.
15. "Between The Buried And Me". Metal Underground. November 7, 2009.
16. "Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect (staff review)". Sputnikmusic. October 26, 2009.
17. "Between the Buried and Me - 'The Great Misdirect'". MetalGeorge Pacheco. October 27, 2009.
18. Between the Buried and Me: 'The Great Misdirect' Audio Teaser Available 2009-08-31. Retrieved on 2009-09-10.
19. Between the Buried and Me - Obfuscation *NEW SONG* on YouTube. 2009-09-01. Retrieved on 2009-09-06.
20. The Great Misdirect - Between the... billboard.com. Retrieved on 2009-11-12.
21. [2]"It's the last line in that song," Tommy Rogers said on the White Noise Metal Video Podcast. "It's basically just about the misdirection of our brains. The first two tracks of the record, Mirrors and Obfuscation, are kind of like one piece of music. It was basically just my weird fascination with the brain. It's such a confusing thing to me but it fascinates me. Everything from magicians to alien life to religion. Things that I don't think humans will ever understand but we constantly try to."
22. [3]"It's kind of an awakening," BTBAM's singer said. "This story doesn't have an ending, yet maybe. I kind of left it open-ended in case I wanted to touch on it at some other point. It's about a businessman who needs something new in his life. He goes to the sea and basically floats and sees where it takes him. It gets him in a lot of trouble. It's kind of like "Sun of Nothing." It's his thought process evaluating everything he's done and everything he wants to do, what's important and what's not important. Because I think those are the kinds of things that I personally over the last few years have kind of looked into. There's so much shit that people worry about that really doesn't matter. There are only certain things that really make an impact on your life and others and I guess those stories are about figuring out what I need in my life.
23. [4][5] Victory Records. Retrieved on 2010-03-22
24. General information stated in the album booklet
25. Disease Injury Madness Hidden Lyrics BTBAM on YouTube. 2010-01-19
26. (2009). "The Great Misdirect liner notes". In The Great Misdirect [CD booklet]. Victory.