Between the Buried and Me / Hail the Sun / Delta Sleep

FOR FANS OF: Thank You Scientist, Chon, Covet, Intervals, TTNG, Idlehands, Coheed and Cambria, The Dear Hunter, Fall of Troy, Native Construct, Haken, Dance Gavin Dance, Protest the Hero, Makari, Intervals, Toe, Enemies

October 28, 2025 at The Newport in Columbus, OH

I drove down to Columbus to see Delta Sleep for the first time and BTBAM for the ~100th time. Sadly, there was insane traffic due to construction on 71 and I was late. I only ended up seeing the last 10 minutes or so of Delta Sleep’s set, which weighed heavy on me to this day. I can’t wait until the chance I can see them again, I will definitely leave like… 4 hours early to ensure I see them. I fell in love with their album Management while listening to other “chill” prog music like Covet, Chon, TTNG and Idlehands. The first song I heard from them was Jesus Bill! and I was hooked. As soon as I heard the delay pedal drawing out a “stuck” note, I knew these guys were unique and I audibly went “ooooh,” in the shower when giving the album a chance for the first time. Their range in clean tones, calm vocals, big builds, changing time signatures, it checked all of my boxes for casual prog listening. Absolutely give them a listen.

Hail the Sun is a band I’ve seen many times but was blown away the first time I saw Donovan step back to the drum kit after a few songs to play while singing these intensely changing prog songs. I listened to them for years without watching any music videos or learning more about the members and what they did for the band. You could imagine my surprise when halfway through the set, Donovan jumps on the kit for some hits from my favorite album of thiers, Wake. I literally looked at the stranger next to me and yelled “Did you know!?” They looked at me like “I don't know who this is.” I politely enjoyed the set by myself while walking around the venue catching different angles of the band. Great show as usual, with lots of mic swinging and falsetto filling the air. Always worth a listen.

Between the Buried and Me has created this tour called “The Blue Nowhere Tour” in conjunction with their recent release, The Blue Nowhere. It feels like they are extremely comfortable writing music with unique changes, tones, genres and heaviness all lumped into one. It feels theatrical and maybe bridges the songwriting style of Coma Ecliptic and Parallax II, but with more tones that feel inspired by 80s prog. This album was the first written as a four-piece without Dusty, their guitarist of ~20 years. It still feels very true to the bands’ vibe, yet is missing something when it comes to the songwriting for the replayability factor of that album was low for me. What really stood out during this show was their replacement guitarist for Dusty, Tristan Auman, who is just a kid in comparison to the other members. The whole time, I ended up watching him and seeing how he’d do playing Dusty’s parts. He absolutely killed it and I followed him in instagram during the set. Super tight, clean, and made it look effortless. Total prodigy. I came to found out Tristan was/is a student of Paul, the other guitarist and Paul obviously knew the kid has what it takes to play a whole set of BTBAM songs while juggling tones and the technical side of the mix as well. As usual, BTBAM is worth seeing even if you’re not into metal. Chances are they’ll cover a genre you are into during their set. Undeniable musicianship from a group of scholars.

As you can see by the photos, I decided to get as experimental with images as they are with music.

Images shot by Shane McNicholas @elsephoto with a Ricoh GRIII HDF