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.