Baroness - Blue Record

there is a lot to like about this album.

http://www.relapse.com/ekits/dbimages/hi_res_images/BLUERECORD_RGB.jpg

do you know when it's out?

October

I pre-ordered the 2xCD last month

"A Horse Called Golgotha" is my jam. fuzz solo kills me.

Cool cover. I look forward to this.

I did not know until today that there would be a 2CD deluxe edition, but I have now preordered one.

My favorite part is the segue from "Steel That Sleeps the Eye" into "Swollen and Halo." The build from the mellow space rock into the crazy jam gets me every time.

My favorite part is the segue from "Steel That Sleeps the Eye" into "Swollen and Halo."

Yeah, that's really cool. "The Gnashing" is the one track I've been going back to the most. Overall it's stylistically similar to Red, but there's a lot more depth, better production, more varied instrumentation.

The swooshing sound effects in the back of "Steel That Sleeps The Eye" are killing me right now.

Very Hawkwind.

liking it and i assume i'll grow to love it. plenty of manic energy, thumping bass lines and awesome synchronised leads. there's a real classic metal quality to the record, and the spacey, jammier tracks lend diversity and scope. some indifferent vocals here and there, but hell, i'm being picky.

Loving long stretches, liking the rest very much. I woke up realizing the songs were running through my head all night. The Red Album was good, but lagged at the end, and there's no such problem here. Even though I can make out all the words, I've got no idea what they are singing about, ever. Is there a concept here, or am I sensing a concept just 'cause of some surface similarities to Mastodon? "O'er Hell and Hide" is quite the gallop.

On first listen, this is super promising.

A bunch of "new songs" are streaming on the band's MySpace page. I'm not really a metal fan, so I'm wary about it. But there's something more, I dunno, melodic and less abrasive about this band? I can sorta get into it.

this record is the very definition of "crossover".

um, not the metal sub-genre "crossover". you know what i mean.

Yeah. The world needs some good metal crossovers. And I do not mean nu-metal or screamo.

I am total sucka for dual harmonized lead guitars.

same here.

same here (tho several weeks later). listening to the red and blue albums back to back this evening, after spending most of the last month listening the new one. find that i like the red album a LOT more in retrospect. at the time it seemed to stack up unfavorably to the eps, especially the 1st. now it's the clear precursor to my favorite record of 09 (and maybe my fave metal record of the 00s?)

the stretch from steel that sleeps the eye thru swollen and halo kills me every time. steel is so insanely beautiful and swollen so punishing & exultant, but both built from the same basic materials. "waves are screaming abraxan hymns..."

picked up the vinyl a few days ago. one of the best looking (and feeling!) record packaging jobs i've ever seen. the print & paper quality are amazing, do justice to the art in a way that the cd just can't. 2 by 12" 45 too, a which makes for pretty spectacular sound quality.

there's a feature on these guys & other savannah metal bands in the new spin (w thom yorke on the cover)

Chris Richards in the Washington Post "Post Rock" blog hails them and Mastodon in his live review of Baroness

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postrock/2009/11/baroness_live_last_night.html

Gonna see Baroness tonight at Reggie's Rock Club, can't wait. I was discussing with my friend I'm going with about whether they were metal or not. Their first EPs to my ears sound closer to Mogwai, Fugazi and Torche than metal, so I put them in my hard rock section. She says they're metal. If they were more over the top with at least one element (vocals, brutal riffs, lyrics) I'd agree, but am on the fence.

coming around on this record tho i don't think it will top the red album for me. seeing them play really helped.

They came off a bit less metal when I saw them live last week, actually. Bizarrely, I found myself thinking a little of first-album-era Soul Asylum (!)

Wow. With Shrinebuilder being the last previous show I saw, I'd say that Shrinebuilder was like a big taco dinner at a good Mexican restaurant. Baroness was like an excellent cocktail, dinner, and then a BJ.

this album is quite a grower, like everyone on rolling metal suggested iirc

RAD! I am compelled to say that as I am amidst 'Swollen And Halo' which kicks quite a lot of ass.

kinda figured you'd dig it, lj, given yr taste for heavy/anthemic prog stuff

i wouldn't say 'anthemic' so much! some anthemic stuff is way cool but i tend to like my prog knotty, complicated, riven with doubt, and often quite dark. fortunately this album brings a sort of deliriously queasy triumph, an anthemic quality where the anthem is for a problem

so yeah, i dig it. i already dug the previous album (especially 'rays on pinion' whose intro ought to go on for another 10 minutes) but this is mighty. and tight. so, so tight. it even manages loads of complex solos and it's tight!

the voice had a bitter bitter bitter mastodon/baroness takedown the other day

what, because they fuck w/ melody, tempo changes and lighter textures rather than noisy hairy ugly troo metal ruckus?

second half of 'ogeechee hymnal' does sound like gybe mind ;)

didn't deciblog do a good takedown of that voice takedown and its metalier-than-thou stench?

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-11-24/music/pelican-s-sketchy-metal/

http://decibelmagazine.com/Content.aspx?ncid=345944

thanks that was what I was looking for

oh god shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up

what are you talking about

jeanne f is an ilxor, and it shows. go team!

the other day ... wasn't it like month ago? anyway, yeah my pal Monica hipped me to the ensuing "controversy" .. pretty great reading if you like reading internet beefs (comment sections of course being key):

response piece on metalsucks.net:

http://www.metalsucks.net/2009/12/01/village-voice-writer-eloquently-disses-torche-mastodon-baroness-and-pelican-in-one-fell-swoop/

response piece to the response piece on metalsucks.net:

http://www.metalsucks.net/2009/12/02/the-austerity-programs-justin-foley-responds-to-that-eloquent-village-voice-writer/

Posted 12/2/2009 10:18 AM by VOEGTLIN

Thanks for the flattery and thanks for reading and re-reading, folks. Up the Irons.

Posted 12/2/2009 11:28 AM by jerkstore

Come on, you want to use more adjectives than that.

Posted 12/2/2009 11:38 AM by mr ed

Stewart Voegtlin, self-Googler.

Posted 12/2/2009 11:53 AM by VOEGTLIN

Self-googler, pretentious asshole, douche, troo metaller, thesaurus wielder, hipster, Williamsburg res, contrarian, hack, etc etc etc. Y'all think this is news to me? Ha ha ha.

Posted 12/2/2009 12:52 PM by jerkstore

He knows he's a huge douche. Joke's on us!

seems like Voice dude only makes an argument against Pelican (good or not), and then makes an argument against a -statement- by Baizley, and then ropes in Mastodon and Torche in a little logical coup I like to call "because I said so".

yeah the original article is totally weak and unconvincing.

i don't honestly come away from it even thinking he actually dislikes all these bands that much. it's a rhetorical stance for a paycheck. pretty emitic tbh

justin foley brings it

he's right about the cheeziness and emotional vacuity of the big, grand, cathartic thing a lot of contemporary sort-of-metal bands trade in, and right to trace it back to neurosis. but he's crushingly oblivious to the appeal that heroic cheeze can exert, even when one doesn't totally buy into it, especially when it's executed with originality, skill & "dunderheaded" zeal. pomp appeal isn't intrinsically any worse than the winking, above-it-all irony that trans am trade in, though i can see why it might seem so to someone who condescends for a living.

article was horrible, but it did make me feel a lot better about ilm metal threads.

in general, fuck the whole POV this guy's working from. contempt for pop appeal is the single most insufferable load of horseshit a critic can bring to bear (imo), and the vast majority of this asshole's zingers boil down to that. how is slough feg's swiping from metal's past any more admirable than mastodon's swiping from prog's? motorhead's aesthetic IS simplicity, therefore it's necessarily simpler/clearer than most, but how does that make it better than something that moves in more than one direction.

funniest thing is that, though he presents himself as metal authority guy, his argument is like a wayback machine to 80s indie rock values: prog sucks, popular appeal is contemptible, unironic emotionalism is gay.

that VV prick used to post on southern lord/dffd but threw a strop when he realised some people liked mastodon on there and left in a huff.

"meta-emotional discourse"

*shivers*

lol @ those "jerkstore" comments

I don't think the VV article is any more complicated than one cool kid trying to get the jump on out-cooling what he thinks other cool kids are flocking to, and kind of head-faking himself out in the process as his tactic takes him far away from direct interaction with actual music. It's all about contrarianism and positioning. I'm not saying what he's doing is wrong or any worse than what anyone does, it just is what it is.

slough feg is pretty dumb from what i've heard

Then you haven't heard them. Slough Feg is AWESOME. Please to sample the track 'I Will Kill You'.

Singer has an absolutely CLASSIC hard rock voice, they're worth hearing for that alone.

Slough Feg are a brilliant band.

i heard that track; not my thing

just saw this thread pop up; this is maybe my second or third fave album of the year in any genre. scott was right up there about this being a crossover album -- when i year-end blurbed it, i called it "crossover" too, but had the editor strike it because i didn't want people to confuse it with a thrash album (not that the readership would likely make such distinctions, but nevertheless) -- and it's been a totally easy sell to non-metal (but not hard rock averse) folks. but it's a GREAT crossover album, which leaves me wondering if this voegtlin guy really enjoys, you know, riffs.

I think it got bumped to my #2 album of the year by Lindstrom & Prins Thomas but yeah it's fukn killer crossover.

When I saw them live last month in NYC I actually felt a weird vibe of like Made To Be Broken-era Soul Asylum which I hadn't thought of before at all in relation to the studio album.

i swear i did the whole pelican/trans am thing on rolling metal a couple months ago. i think that village voice dude is snooping on me.

Village Voice guy sounds like one of those ppl who would have to be invented if they didn't exist.

i have to admit, the height of my mastodon fandom was six years ago:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-04-15/music/elephant-men-exhumed/

relapse still havent shipped my lp.

Was supposed to ship middle of december. Anyone got theirs yet?

saw them live last night

so good

this album holds up really, really well.

new Baroness album is going to slay, isn't it? the songs they've put out there so far are awesome.

Potential album of the year material. It's that good. And not a trace of metal on it, so hopefully it can cross over.

^Seriously, you guys.