Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Why Agnosticism and Atheism are Not the Same Thing
Full disclosure--I identify myself as an agnostic. I was raised in a non-denominational Christian home, but it never sat well with me, it never spoke to me (it was apparently not one of William James' live options for me, despite the culture I am in). As a child I had questions that were not satisfied by the religious answers, with the problem of evil being the largest and the various arguments for the existence of God not being particularly strong to me. The cosmological argument comes closest, because the universe is amazing, but it's still quite a leap to assume some sort of transcendental being. I've studied many religions, science and philosophy for a long time, and never really found a satisfying answer. So, I tend to pull bits I like from various belief systems when logic and science take us to the edge of what reason can currently offer. With that being said, I have also been exploring Eastern philosophy, which for the most part doesn't believe in a 'God' as we would define one in Western terms, but still holds some similar ideas that are more mystical than science (though, in general, I think Eastern thought is more comfortable with science).
Being in a theistic culture, where we are surrounded by Christianity (yes, other religions too, but Christianity is the overwhelming experience in our culture), the vocal, modern athiests have in fact become primarily an opposition to the Christian ideas. They will claim this is a narrow definition, and it is, but like being overwhelmed by the number of Christian rhetoric in our culture, the overwhelming voice of atheism is simply the contrary argument to Christianity. Try to find one that claims to be a soft atheist, and despite their compelling arguments, most will eventually devolve into anti-Christians. See the video below for an example.
Here's Penn Jilette to provide the broad definition of atheism:
I am a fan of Penn; I love that he (and Teller) challenge conventional thought. I love that they often do it in a way that favors reasonable arguments, common sense and most of the time, compassion. I do not always agree though, and I want to try to lay out why, in this case, I think the equating of atheism with agnosticism is wrong. Maybe not wrong, but at least kind of missing the point and not really adding to the discussion.
At first, it's hard to argue against what he's saying here. On the face of it, the distinction that agnosticism is talking about knowledge whereas atheism is talking about belief makes sense. They are two different questions. 'Does God exist?' is a question of knowledge. It is a claim of certainty if your answer is yes or no, and the definition of agnosticism if your answer is 'I don't know'. 'Do you believe God exists?' is a different question; it is a claim of faith--this is where Penn's argument comes into play. His claim, and the claim of similar-thinking atheists that prefer the broad definition, is this: You either believe in God, or you don't; answering 'I don't know' is the same thing as not believing. To put it simply, the broad definition of atheism is merely the absence of belief in any gods.
Now I'll admit that part of my distaste for being labeled an atheist is due to the narrow definition, which many claim is faulty. I simply do not want myself associated with the crop of angry, vocal certainty-claiming athiests that you see and hear way more often than the broad definition atheists. These people are just as unreasonable as the fundamentalists, and like so many other things in our culture, the extreme fringes frame the "debate" while the rest of us sit on the sidelines while they scream at each other. This is unfortunate, but it is the reality of our culture. For that fact alone, you don't get to discount the narrow definition of atheism, because it is literally louder than the other option (even if the other option is logically valid).
But is the broad definition sound? Is it good enough to say that atheism is merely the absence of belief, and if so, that anyone that doesn't conform to an organized belief system is an atheist by default? Are you starting to see the problem with this line of thought? Why is it being defined solely as an antithesis to established belief systems? To look further, we'll need to look at some other definitions.
Belief can be defined as a) to have a firm, religious faith, and b) to accept something as true, genuine or real. This comes from the Merriam-Webster definition. Furthermore, here is a link (making the case for an overlap of agnosticism and atheism) that adds the following: A belief is the mental attitude that some proposition is true. Now you will see where the confusion comes in. Within the definition for belief, we have now assumed 'truth' as an important part of the equation. Centuries have been devoted to trying to define 'truth'. What is it? Can there be different kinds? Is it absolute or relative? I'm not sure I can really get into that without this just becoming a jumbled mess (at least a more jumbled mess than it already is), so let's move on and see if we can assume a common sense definition of 'truth' without it getting us into trouble.
Further down the page from that link, you will see a common clarification of the difference between belief and knowledge. Something is 'known' when it is a justified, true belief. So, knowledge then has 3 conditions: 1) you believe X (which is to say that you believe X is true), 2) X is true, and 3) there are good reasons to believe X. The first condition is the condition of belief or faith, whereas the other two conditions are more tied to experiential or evidential proof (and hence why they are necessary conditions to knowledge). On the face of it, this seems like a good, simple way to look at this, but to me, there still seems to be some assumptions built in to these premises, and there is not much to grab onto for the agnostic that doesn't want to make a definitive claim about the 'truth' of things.
And I'm also asking the atheists to explore their own honesty a bit here. Are you being truthful when you say that an atheist can not believe in God, but also allow for the possibility for God to exist? Here's a quote from Bertrand Russell, a famous proponent of anti-Christianity (who bounced back and forth from calling himself an atheist and calling himself agnostic) and a logical positivist: "I don't think it is certain there is no such thing — I think it is on exactly the same level as the Olympic gods, or the Norwegian gods; they also may exist, the gods of Olympus and Valhalla. I can't prove they don't, but I think that the Christian God has no more likelihood than they had. I think they are a bare possibility" Saying that one can allow for the logical possibility of the existence of God while also saying that it is so empirically unlikely that it really shouldn't even be considered seems like what they are really doing is conflating the distinction between belief and knowledge. This is the main problem with logical positivism--if something can't be talked about in terms of logic, then it really isn't worth talking about.
So generally, here are the lines of attack for the atheist: they can't deny whether someone believes something (#1), but they can assert that not believing something when #2 and #3 are in play is foolish and ignorant. This is when someone refuses to believe in something like evolution or the age of the earth despite evidence to the contrary. So far, I agree with this, but notice that none of that really has anything to do with whether God exists.
They often deny the reasons for believing something (#3); this is probably most common, and mirrors their own reasons for why they are an atheist--the reasons someone believes something are not always convincing to others; sometimes they are based on reasonable arguments or evidence (science and logic, if done correctly), but sometimes it might be based on a more subjective scale, experience with people or a feeling (maybe even just out of wish fulfillment fantasy or hope). This is not necessarily bad, but it does remove #3 from the realm of knowledge if it can't satisfy condition #2, and at the very least, opposing sides are unlikely to agree on the validity of the reasons.
#2 is where it gets tricky. How do you determine whether something is true? Unfortunately, some (most?) theists and atheists believe that the mere fact of believing something and having reasons to believe something (#1 and #3) means that they have also fulfilled #2, that the object of their belief is true. For many questions, science holds the answer through proper scientific method. Things can be observed, measured, falsified, repeated, etc. Reasonable conclusions can be drawn. You can therefore assume some truths to exist; if I drop a ball in the right conditions, gravity will pull it towards the ground. But what happens when you are dealing with a question, that by it's very nature, is not answerable through the scientific method? If you therefore operate in life as if your belief is true, then does it really make a difference whether you are acting out of belief or knowledge? Isn't the result the same either way?
This is where the agnostic resides. They believe that in this case, #2 cannot be determined. It's true that there are atheists that agree with this too, but as stated before, they are the vocal minority, in my experience. If agnosticism is really just a claim about knowledge and atheism is a claim about belief, then where does that put the agnostic, in terms of being lumped in with atheists due to 'not believing' in God?
First, let's go back to the definition of atheism: the absence of belief in God. And the definition of belief: a mental attitude that some proposition is true. Now let's look at both questions, once as knowledge and once as belief and see if there's really any difference for the agnostic. Does God exist? Ignoring the fact that as an agnostic, I don't believe we can verify this, I do believe that there is an answer. Choose whichever version of God to which you are inclined, and there is a yes or no answer to the question. It has a truth value. For the agnostic, without denying that the actual answer could be yes or no, the answer is 'I don't know'. This is not a cop out, but rather just an observation of the difference between an absolute truth and what we are able to determine with our limited experience. If you answer a definitive yes or no, then you are either a theist or an athiest, both making a truth claim about knowledge you can't possibly have. Now let's look at the sticking point for the debate, do you believe God exists? Not being necessarily tied to the truth value of whether God actually exists or not, for many, this is an easier question to answer. The atheist claims, however, that the answer can only be yes or no. This is merely semantic trickery, sophistry based on the etymology of the word 'atheist'. I claim, that as an agnostic, that I can still answer 'I don't know', which invalidates the claim that we are the same. I do not accept that an answer of belief must be an either/or scenario. This is actually a fallacy of false alternatives.
As agnostics, we are offended by this reasoning because it frames the debate in terms solely defined by the beliefs of the theist and the antithesis argument provided by the atheist, when it's likely that something else entirely is happening. A similar situation (for comparison) happens with our political system. 'Are you a Democrat or a Republican?' is currently the typical climate here. Many people identify themselves as one or the other, but more reasonable people know that one or the other doesn't really match with their entire system of beliefs and values. There are flaws and assets on both sides. Asking someone whether they are a Democrat or a Republican not only assumes those are the only alternatives, but it also frames the debate in terms of those two parties' talking points. And finally, what it really does is give us a shorthand to help us make assumptions about the other person without actually entering into a reasonable debate.
But really, to be fair, we need to make the example more similar to what the atheists are claiming. So the question becomes 'Are you a Democrat? (or Are you a Republican?)'. Everything other than a Democrat then, is an Ademocrat. If such a word actually existed, it would be technically correct based on the roots of the word. That changes the possible outcomes to affirming you are with the party in question, or you are something else. Do you define yourself along the Party Line, or are you against us? We would then be lumping all other political parties in together that are not Democrats. Is there really enough similarity between other parties (Republican, Libertarian, Green, Reformist, etc) that this bisection is helpful or descriptive enough? This is what the atheist is doing to the agnostic, but is it helpful to the discussion? Does it matter if technically by putting the prefix 'a' before 'theist' means 'without god'? Even if we were to concede to that as a technical win, does it really add to the discussion or provide any illumination on what we do believe?
Going back to part b of the definition of belief above: to accept something as true, genuine or real. The key word there is 'accept'. Now the word 'accept' has several definitions: 1) to take or receive (something offered), 2) to give an affirmative reply to, 3) to take on the responsibilities of, 4) to tolerate or accommodate oneself to, 5) to consider as true or believe in, 6) to be willing to grant or believe, 7) to receive with approval or admit, as in to a community or group, 8) to agree to pay, and there's a few more, but they really aren't that different from some of the others already listed. Now look at #4 and #6. A belief could then be something that is tolerated or accommodated as true or something that is willing to be granted as true. This means that it could be perfectly acceptable to allow for a belief to have more than a yes or no answer. I can tolerate the belief that there may very well be a God without having to trumpet from on high that I believe a God exists. Likewise, I can be willing to accept that there might not be a God without also having to declare that there is no evidence for God to exist. And in fact, the agnostic is doing both; that is, allowing for both possibilities without necessarily believing in either. I believe that the agnostic is still searching, still exploring, still questioning.
Furthermore, by answering both questions with 'I don't know', does that really mean that an agnostic is 'without God'? Or are they just without the traditional and established ideas of what God is and isn't? If I believe there could be 'something', pulling the ideas that make sense to me from different religions and philosophies, then I am unlikely to be accepted by a traditional group of theists as having like beliefs. Conversely though, I am unwilling to accept that the things we discover through science and logic is all there is--I believe there is a point where reason cannot take us, and for that we need something else. Call it what you want, but I doubt the atheists would accept me as having similar beliefs to them any more than the theists if I am willing to explore spiritual possibilities.
In all fairness, I have often found that I agree on more issues with atheists than theists. I do not believe morality to be issued by religion (it can be, but it is not necessary to have religion to have morality). Most of the time the question of whether God exists seems irrelevant to me. Atheists would probably say that puts me firmly in their camp. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that. But ultimately, when either side proposes to affect change in the world inspired by compassion in place of ugliness, then I can get on board regardless of the semantics. If only both groups would stop trying to bisect the world into only two kinds of people in order to recruit troops for their war, then good discussion, tolerance and compassion might be had.
Being in a theistic culture, where we are surrounded by Christianity (yes, other religions too, but Christianity is the overwhelming experience in our culture), the vocal, modern athiests have in fact become primarily an opposition to the Christian ideas. They will claim this is a narrow definition, and it is, but like being overwhelmed by the number of Christian rhetoric in our culture, the overwhelming voice of atheism is simply the contrary argument to Christianity. Try to find one that claims to be a soft atheist, and despite their compelling arguments, most will eventually devolve into anti-Christians. See the video below for an example.
Here's Penn Jilette to provide the broad definition of atheism:
I am a fan of Penn; I love that he (and Teller) challenge conventional thought. I love that they often do it in a way that favors reasonable arguments, common sense and most of the time, compassion. I do not always agree though, and I want to try to lay out why, in this case, I think the equating of atheism with agnosticism is wrong. Maybe not wrong, but at least kind of missing the point and not really adding to the discussion.
At first, it's hard to argue against what he's saying here. On the face of it, the distinction that agnosticism is talking about knowledge whereas atheism is talking about belief makes sense. They are two different questions. 'Does God exist?' is a question of knowledge. It is a claim of certainty if your answer is yes or no, and the definition of agnosticism if your answer is 'I don't know'. 'Do you believe God exists?' is a different question; it is a claim of faith--this is where Penn's argument comes into play. His claim, and the claim of similar-thinking atheists that prefer the broad definition, is this: You either believe in God, or you don't; answering 'I don't know' is the same thing as not believing. To put it simply, the broad definition of atheism is merely the absence of belief in any gods.
Now I'll admit that part of my distaste for being labeled an atheist is due to the narrow definition, which many claim is faulty. I simply do not want myself associated with the crop of angry, vocal certainty-claiming athiests that you see and hear way more often than the broad definition atheists. These people are just as unreasonable as the fundamentalists, and like so many other things in our culture, the extreme fringes frame the "debate" while the rest of us sit on the sidelines while they scream at each other. This is unfortunate, but it is the reality of our culture. For that fact alone, you don't get to discount the narrow definition of atheism, because it is literally louder than the other option (even if the other option is logically valid).
But is the broad definition sound? Is it good enough to say that atheism is merely the absence of belief, and if so, that anyone that doesn't conform to an organized belief system is an atheist by default? Are you starting to see the problem with this line of thought? Why is it being defined solely as an antithesis to established belief systems? To look further, we'll need to look at some other definitions.
Belief can be defined as a) to have a firm, religious faith, and b) to accept something as true, genuine or real. This comes from the Merriam-Webster definition. Furthermore, here is a link (making the case for an overlap of agnosticism and atheism) that adds the following: A belief is the mental attitude that some proposition is true. Now you will see where the confusion comes in. Within the definition for belief, we have now assumed 'truth' as an important part of the equation. Centuries have been devoted to trying to define 'truth'. What is it? Can there be different kinds? Is it absolute or relative? I'm not sure I can really get into that without this just becoming a jumbled mess (at least a more jumbled mess than it already is), so let's move on and see if we can assume a common sense definition of 'truth' without it getting us into trouble.
Further down the page from that link, you will see a common clarification of the difference between belief and knowledge. Something is 'known' when it is a justified, true belief. So, knowledge then has 3 conditions: 1) you believe X (which is to say that you believe X is true), 2) X is true, and 3) there are good reasons to believe X. The first condition is the condition of belief or faith, whereas the other two conditions are more tied to experiential or evidential proof (and hence why they are necessary conditions to knowledge). On the face of it, this seems like a good, simple way to look at this, but to me, there still seems to be some assumptions built in to these premises, and there is not much to grab onto for the agnostic that doesn't want to make a definitive claim about the 'truth' of things.
And I'm also asking the atheists to explore their own honesty a bit here. Are you being truthful when you say that an atheist can not believe in God, but also allow for the possibility for God to exist? Here's a quote from Bertrand Russell, a famous proponent of anti-Christianity (who bounced back and forth from calling himself an atheist and calling himself agnostic) and a logical positivist: "I don't think it is certain there is no such thing — I think it is on exactly the same level as the Olympic gods, or the Norwegian gods; they also may exist, the gods of Olympus and Valhalla. I can't prove they don't, but I think that the Christian God has no more likelihood than they had. I think they are a bare possibility" Saying that one can allow for the logical possibility of the existence of God while also saying that it is so empirically unlikely that it really shouldn't even be considered seems like what they are really doing is conflating the distinction between belief and knowledge. This is the main problem with logical positivism--if something can't be talked about in terms of logic, then it really isn't worth talking about.
So generally, here are the lines of attack for the atheist: they can't deny whether someone believes something (#1), but they can assert that not believing something when #2 and #3 are in play is foolish and ignorant. This is when someone refuses to believe in something like evolution or the age of the earth despite evidence to the contrary. So far, I agree with this, but notice that none of that really has anything to do with whether God exists.
They often deny the reasons for believing something (#3); this is probably most common, and mirrors their own reasons for why they are an atheist--the reasons someone believes something are not always convincing to others; sometimes they are based on reasonable arguments or evidence (science and logic, if done correctly), but sometimes it might be based on a more subjective scale, experience with people or a feeling (maybe even just out of wish fulfillment fantasy or hope). This is not necessarily bad, but it does remove #3 from the realm of knowledge if it can't satisfy condition #2, and at the very least, opposing sides are unlikely to agree on the validity of the reasons.
#2 is where it gets tricky. How do you determine whether something is true? Unfortunately, some (most?) theists and atheists believe that the mere fact of believing something and having reasons to believe something (#1 and #3) means that they have also fulfilled #2, that the object of their belief is true. For many questions, science holds the answer through proper scientific method. Things can be observed, measured, falsified, repeated, etc. Reasonable conclusions can be drawn. You can therefore assume some truths to exist; if I drop a ball in the right conditions, gravity will pull it towards the ground. But what happens when you are dealing with a question, that by it's very nature, is not answerable through the scientific method? If you therefore operate in life as if your belief is true, then does it really make a difference whether you are acting out of belief or knowledge? Isn't the result the same either way?
This is where the agnostic resides. They believe that in this case, #2 cannot be determined. It's true that there are atheists that agree with this too, but as stated before, they are the vocal minority, in my experience. If agnosticism is really just a claim about knowledge and atheism is a claim about belief, then where does that put the agnostic, in terms of being lumped in with atheists due to 'not believing' in God?
First, let's go back to the definition of atheism: the absence of belief in God. And the definition of belief: a mental attitude that some proposition is true. Now let's look at both questions, once as knowledge and once as belief and see if there's really any difference for the agnostic. Does God exist? Ignoring the fact that as an agnostic, I don't believe we can verify this, I do believe that there is an answer. Choose whichever version of God to which you are inclined, and there is a yes or no answer to the question. It has a truth value. For the agnostic, without denying that the actual answer could be yes or no, the answer is 'I don't know'. This is not a cop out, but rather just an observation of the difference between an absolute truth and what we are able to determine with our limited experience. If you answer a definitive yes or no, then you are either a theist or an athiest, both making a truth claim about knowledge you can't possibly have. Now let's look at the sticking point for the debate, do you believe God exists? Not being necessarily tied to the truth value of whether God actually exists or not, for many, this is an easier question to answer. The atheist claims, however, that the answer can only be yes or no. This is merely semantic trickery, sophistry based on the etymology of the word 'atheist'. I claim, that as an agnostic, that I can still answer 'I don't know', which invalidates the claim that we are the same. I do not accept that an answer of belief must be an either/or scenario. This is actually a fallacy of false alternatives.
As agnostics, we are offended by this reasoning because it frames the debate in terms solely defined by the beliefs of the theist and the antithesis argument provided by the atheist, when it's likely that something else entirely is happening. A similar situation (for comparison) happens with our political system. 'Are you a Democrat or a Republican?' is currently the typical climate here. Many people identify themselves as one or the other, but more reasonable people know that one or the other doesn't really match with their entire system of beliefs and values. There are flaws and assets on both sides. Asking someone whether they are a Democrat or a Republican not only assumes those are the only alternatives, but it also frames the debate in terms of those two parties' talking points. And finally, what it really does is give us a shorthand to help us make assumptions about the other person without actually entering into a reasonable debate.
But really, to be fair, we need to make the example more similar to what the atheists are claiming. So the question becomes 'Are you a Democrat? (or Are you a Republican?)'. Everything other than a Democrat then, is an Ademocrat. If such a word actually existed, it would be technically correct based on the roots of the word. That changes the possible outcomes to affirming you are with the party in question, or you are something else. Do you define yourself along the Party Line, or are you against us? We would then be lumping all other political parties in together that are not Democrats. Is there really enough similarity between other parties (Republican, Libertarian, Green, Reformist, etc) that this bisection is helpful or descriptive enough? This is what the atheist is doing to the agnostic, but is it helpful to the discussion? Does it matter if technically by putting the prefix 'a' before 'theist' means 'without god'? Even if we were to concede to that as a technical win, does it really add to the discussion or provide any illumination on what we do believe?
Going back to part b of the definition of belief above: to accept something as true, genuine or real. The key word there is 'accept'. Now the word 'accept' has several definitions: 1) to take or receive (something offered), 2) to give an affirmative reply to, 3) to take on the responsibilities of, 4) to tolerate or accommodate oneself to, 5) to consider as true or believe in, 6) to be willing to grant or believe, 7) to receive with approval or admit, as in to a community or group, 8) to agree to pay, and there's a few more, but they really aren't that different from some of the others already listed. Now look at #4 and #6. A belief could then be something that is tolerated or accommodated as true or something that is willing to be granted as true. This means that it could be perfectly acceptable to allow for a belief to have more than a yes or no answer. I can tolerate the belief that there may very well be a God without having to trumpet from on high that I believe a God exists. Likewise, I can be willing to accept that there might not be a God without also having to declare that there is no evidence for God to exist. And in fact, the agnostic is doing both; that is, allowing for both possibilities without necessarily believing in either. I believe that the agnostic is still searching, still exploring, still questioning.
Furthermore, by answering both questions with 'I don't know', does that really mean that an agnostic is 'without God'? Or are they just without the traditional and established ideas of what God is and isn't? If I believe there could be 'something', pulling the ideas that make sense to me from different religions and philosophies, then I am unlikely to be accepted by a traditional group of theists as having like beliefs. Conversely though, I am unwilling to accept that the things we discover through science and logic is all there is--I believe there is a point where reason cannot take us, and for that we need something else. Call it what you want, but I doubt the atheists would accept me as having similar beliefs to them any more than the theists if I am willing to explore spiritual possibilities.
In all fairness, I have often found that I agree on more issues with atheists than theists. I do not believe morality to be issued by religion (it can be, but it is not necessary to have religion to have morality). Most of the time the question of whether God exists seems irrelevant to me. Atheists would probably say that puts me firmly in their camp. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that. But ultimately, when either side proposes to affect change in the world inspired by compassion in place of ugliness, then I can get on board regardless of the semantics. If only both groups would stop trying to bisect the world into only two kinds of people in order to recruit troops for their war, then good discussion, tolerance and compassion might be had.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Foreign Fields - Taller
Saw these guys open for Counting Crows a few weeks ago--they were amazing live, as you can see from the video.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Baroness - Yellow & Green review
5 out of 5
This is the Baroness album I have been waiting for. I have liked all their previous work, but something was always missing for me. I wanted to like them more than I actually ended up doing. They have been adding classic rock flourishes in with their sludge/stoner/doom/prog for the past couple of albums, and here, it comes to fruition. With Yellow & Green, they have created a straight-forward and ultimately catchy rock record. There is less noodling here, less meandering song structures and more memorable songwriting and catchy as hell singalong vocals.
I have always been able (for the most part) to roll with the punches when bands change direction. Most of the time, you can tell where a band is headed if you pay attention. I didn't bat an eye when Entombed went from death metal crust to death N roll with their Hollowman EP, and then Wolverine Blues. When Metallica released the Black Album, it didn't bother me that much that it didn't sound like Justice. Likewise when they released Load. C.O.C. has changed direction at least 3 times. Iron & Wine started adding percussion and electric instruments around 2005. Thrice is different on each album. And then of course, there is Mastodon, who share a stomping ground with Baroness. There is a fairly vocal set of "fans" that refuse to acknowledge any brilliance recorded by Mastodon since Remission (part of this is because the indie rock people, like CMJ and Pitchfork, starting paying attention to Mastodon with Leviathan). I happen to think that Blood Mountain is a masterpiece on the same level as classic albums like Justice, Rust in Peace and Reign in Blood. And everything they've done after has been great too. And, or course, there's a number of people saying they don't like Yellow & Green because Baroness isn't "heavy" anymore, never mind the fact that their First and Second EPs (their heavy era) is a mere total of six songs. I think the change that most resembles what Baroness have done is the change in vocalists for The Ocean. Many people were put off by the clean singing and greater amount of melody on Heliocentric and Anthropocentric. I personally, loved those albums. There's many moments on Yellow & Green that remind me of The Ocean's latest outputs, mainly in regards to melody and vocal harmonies. This is not to say Baroness sound like The Ocean; they do not. The Ocean are still firmly planted in the type of post metal begun by Neurosis and Isis. Baroness have left metal behind by this point. Probably they now have the most similarity to Torche, a band that can be heavy and rock while at the same time writing memorable melodies.
Here's a list of bands that I thought of while listening to this record: Torche, Mastodon, Weezer, Quicksand, Metallica, Thrice, Pink Floyd, Thin Lizzy, The Ocean, Foo Fighters, Crippled Black Pheonix, Black Mountain, Cave-In and Ancestors. I could see this band touring with any of the aforementioned bands and fitting in just fine. Likewise, if you like any of those bands, I think you will find something to like about Baroness.
I prefer Yellow to Green (it's a double album), though both are good, and for me, there are no throwaway tracks. Many of these songs have been stuck in my head over the past week or so, and maybe more importantly, I have wanted to listen to this album every day. I listen to a lot of music and like a lot of different stuff, so for me to hang out with one album every day (sometimes more than once), is a big statement.
The production is good--it's not overproduced and still has a raw quality to it. The drums are big (even when they go all disco-y with 16th note hi-hats and four-on-the-floor kicks), the guitars are driving and melodic, with many of their typical Thin Lizzy dual harmonies (and the occasional Tom Morello style solo), the bass is audible with a cool tone and has it's own moments to shine when the guitars drop out or fade into accents to the main riffs, keyboards add a psychedelic layer, and the vocals have great hooks. And it's probably going to be an album that my wife won't mind listening to, which always helps.
If Eula doesn't end up being one of the best songs of the year, then I look forward to hearing whatever bests it.
If Relapse ends up releasing a comprehensive box set of the colored albums (Red, Blue Yellow and Green) with some awesome artwork by guitarist/vocalist John Dyer Baizley, it will end up being the first time I will have purchased actual physical media in a long, long time.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
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