Baroness - Yellow And Green (2012)

Awesome stuff. Seems like we need a thread to praise it.

Hear it here, at least for now:

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/08/156292608/first-listen-baroness-yellow-and-green

Pretty good but way too much filler.

metal album of the year, fuck the haters

I'm listening to the NPR stream and enjoying this so far. Best thing they've done by an immense margin.

It's not a metal album, but it is fucking great. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

Yeah, this is fantastic and I love watching the metal gatekeepers getting their knickers all twisted over it.

Totally hate this. Not for failing to to be metal, but for sexless slickness and cornball harmonies. LIke being trapped at the encore of an Alice in Chain gig, where they endlessly cover Asia and Toto deep cuts.

metal album of the year, fuck the purists

encore of an Alice in Chain gig, where they endlessly cover Asia and Toto deep cuts.

Would be in the front row for this gig, btw.

would rather hear Toto cover Got Me Wrong

First impressions:

Yellow is the best thing they've done, even though the alt-rock comes through a bit stronger than I like now and again. I like "Eula" more in sequence than I did hearing it apart from the album. However, Green seems to be mostly a miss, though "Psalms Alive" shakes off some of the torpor that proceeds it.

I might be with AG on this one. There is a killer 40-45 minutes here, but I don't think the stylistic separation of the two parts does it any favors.

Still, it's such a massive step forward that I heartily applaud them. I'm on record as not seeing the appeal of their previous work but this record makes me want to listen to it again.

This is sounding pretty cool, lots of nice textures and details. But the vocals are sometimes a bit Nicklebacky.

I've gone on and on about this album elsewhere, but Phil reiterates everything I've said about this record since day one. Not the least bit metal, which in Baroness's case is the smartest thing they could have done. It's a great rock album, and I'm hoping more people from outside the whole metal scene catch on to it.

the vocals are sometimes a bit Nicklebacky

I haven't heard the new one(s) yet, but this has been my only sort-of objection to them sometimes in the past. But I'm willing to live with it for the grooves, which I'm hoping the new album is awash in.

Second track certainly reminds me of this, if only for a few notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--0XPGid7JY

Man, I had never made the Nickelback connection before, and now I can't unhear it. Thanks ILM!

It's all very alt rock radio.

That's what's killing me.

So their earlier stuff is more 'metal' yeah? Maybe I would prefer it. NB I do like this, but I find some elements irksome

I don't hear alt rock radio, really. I hear Torche in a lot of the vocals, but I've also heard people call them alt rock radio. I suppose the stations here play very different alternative rock on the radio.

wow, not metal at all is a departure i wasn't expecting. particularly given the album seems on the surface to be thematically in sync with the other albums in terms of that colour thing and all.

hmm i think going not metal was always gonna happen. Theyve moved away from their diy punky metal beginnings (and im gonna annoy phil by saying those 2 eps are still the best thing they did again)

Saying there is no metalness to this whatsoever is not entirely accurate.

http://www.spin.com/reviews/baroness-yellow-green-relapse

I reviewed it :D

I'd love to read it but every time I click on it it gets usurped by what looks like the homepage after about two seconds

what the actual fuck

you need to update your browser

sorry abt that

Baroness is Faith No More photographed in their underpants (but not the Red Hot Chili Peppers photographed in their underpants)

this is gold

The deluxe hardbound version of this is gorgeous, next best thing to get if you aren't getting the vinyl.

"...encore of an Alice in Chain gig, where they endlessly cover Asia and Toto deep cuts."

Would be in the front row for this gig, btw.

was gonna say. would spend more time listening to metal if there were more room for big, cheesy harmonies and strong, clear vocals in the genre. that's what i liked so much about that ghost album from a couple years back. haven't heard the new baroness, but i loved the more accessible stuff on the last one, "steel that sleeps the eye" and like.

There's no shortage of cheesy harmonies in most Victory Records/Bamboozle/Hot Topic teenybopper deathcore. It's that Ghost and Baroness are smartypantses too!

probly, but i don't know what hot topic teenybopper deathcore to listen to. ideally, it should have a lot of skulls on it.

You're in luck

I've reviewed shit-tons of Hot Topic teenybopper deathcore for Alternative Press. Lemme go through my clips and find some recommendations for you.

Totally hate this. Not for failing to to be metal, but for sexless slickness and cornball harmonies. LIke being trapped at the encore of an Alice in Chain gig, where they endlessly cover Asia and Toto deep cuts.

I don't hate Baroness like you do, I just don't really care about them, but this is the sort of hilariously cutting remark Whiney'd love if he hadn't decided Baroness rules

"would spend more time listening to metal if there were more room for big, cheesy harmonies and strong, clear vocals in the genre."

!!!!!

!!!!!

for a start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_metal_bands

killer show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB2g60oQD4w

!!!!!

for a start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_metal_bands

― scott seward, Tuesday, July 17, 2012 6:05 PM (42 minutes ago)

i know, i know. i listen to tons of that shit, both new and old. i really meant that i would listen to more of the metal you read about in new wave magazines if it wasn't all cow man mooing noises and giant beards.

though i like that stuff, too, sometimes. thrones!

haha it's the alice-in-chains remark that is thus far preventing me from checking this out

there's actually a pretty big surplus of metal bands with awesome clear vocals & harmonies right now however I think the key thing that metal bands who want to get that non-specialty press nod do is hire non-metal producers: Baroness has been with Congleton since early on, his style's pretty "sure, we'll cover this"-friendly*, and another crossover act, Mastodon, has always been attentive about whether the people they're working with provide them with a bridge to non-specialty press/audiences.

*he's also a very good & capable producer, don't get me wrong, but the chances that a metal band goes into a session w/him & comes out with a straight-up metal album seem slim to me

I didn't know until tonight that their singer does all their artwork. And lots of other album art, too, I guess. Love that Nouveau vibe.

I don't (or didn't) hate Baroness at all. Blue was top ten of the year for me, and The best parts of Red got the apocalyptic feel of Killing Joke into southern prog. But I'm never too keen on harmonies. I don't really hear the 90s alt, except the bits that were filtered through late UK prog like that bee girl song. This record has this brainlessness that makes it the biggest disappointment for me since the Entrance follow up to Prayer of Death.

They've lost what was odd about them.

I really want to enjoy these guys, but their production choices are a big distraction that keep me from really getting immersed in the music. I wish they'd bring down those big thuddy drums a bit and crank up the guitars. At least on this one, the drums and guitars sound more like they exist in the same sonic space than they did on Blue.

cow man mooing noises and giant beards.

yup

dude I swear the chorus of march into the sea is identical to something on killjoys, the last mcr album. I don't have it on hand so I can't say which song, but i will try to figure it out later for my own peace of mind.

"bulletproof heart"

i hear a strain of j. robbins (jawbox / burning airlines / channels) on (if i'm getting the title right) 'take my bones away'. the voice.

super, super big alt-rock-radio vibe.

this is so borrrrring

i kinda feel sorry for you if you find this kind of thing boring.

ok?

i kinda get the nickelback thing

ti's got it's moments musically but yeah feels like basically an extremely high functioning FM "active rock" format 00s band w/prog tendencies

but i'm diggint it overall

that came off more snarky than i intended it to be. i can totally see this not being your thing, but i think they're hitting this sort of anthemic strain of alt-rock that i don't really associate with "boring".

i didn't like mastodon v. much once they cleaned up their sound and got "accessible" either, i guess it's my prob

some of these songs are pretty pokey, like "eula" for example....

yeah i'm hearing a LOT of midtempo when i pick my way through this.

also do not like how the rhythm guitar sounds.

almost done w/first disc

i dunno i might have a to take a break and listen to the undertones or motown or something, this is all so manly

This is pretty good radio rock but it's a shitty Baroness album.

^^^

"almost done w/first disc"

jesus, how many are there!?

2!

18 songs total but quite a few are long-ish

yeesh. you would think THEY were blind guardian. i wish all these metal bands turning into classic rock bands were more...classic.

hey are the ppl who like this really fucking w/disc 2?

on initial listen, dudes voice just does not work for what they are trying to do at all.

is it a good thing or a bad thing that I didn't impulse buy this in the record store today

i can't tell if you would like it? i think you might?

ftr I didn't buy it because I hated the cover

man disc 2 is a slog! first thing i'm really feeling is the 2nd half of song SIX

omg I wish I hadn't read the word "Nickelback" on this thread because that's basically all I can think of now that track 2 has started

i woke up around track 8

stretchmarker is kind of a nice quiet little instrumental so far....totally The New Year/Bedhead/cadane bros vibe

this is pleasant and all but I don't think I need to own this

disc 1 is definitely the stronger of the two

so far "Green Theme" is my favorite track

am I gonna end up being the weirdo who likes disc 2 more than disc 1?

entirely possible.

I agree wholeheartedly with your prior comment:

this is pleasant and all but I don't think I need to own this

am I gonna end up being the weirdo who likes disc 2 more than disc 1?

― PITILESS LIVE SHOW (DJP), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:37 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, if you like falling asleep

i already pre-ordered the vinyl but its not worth $40 + $26 shipping from relapse that its cost me. Certainly not top 10 album of year material, but the good tracks are really good.

for whatever reason, I am digging the moody atmospheric stuff much, much more than the "Nickelback covers Alice In Chains" stuff on disc 1

When you realize it's a bit "Nickelback covers The Decembrists" you might not dig it as much.

i already pre-ordered the vinyl but its not worth $40 + $26 shipping from relapse that its cost me. Certainly not top 10 album of year material, but the good tracks are really good.

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:47 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's obviously worth that to you, because that's what you paid for it.

hey are the ppl who like this really fucking w/disc 2?
--call all destroyer

o/

Green > Yellow > Red > Blue

When you realize it's a bit "Nickelback covers The Decembrists" you might not dig it as much.

u suck

When you realize it's a bit "Nickelback covers The Decembrists" you might not dig it as much.

this the best sickest burn

holy shit 66 dollars for a baroness. you could buy like 33 saxon records for that money.

eddie trunk from that metal show really likes saxon but not as much as UFO...don't get him started about UFO!

also one time there was a stump the trunk question about rush's fear trilogy (witch hunt, the weapon, and the enemy within) and he didn't know it and the guy was like "you know, like witch hunt from moving pictures" and eddie got sort of offended that anyone would think he liked rush after they got into synthesizers!

i wonder if the guy who owns relapse rolls around nude on $20s or $50s

not really. it would still cost $20 to ship an lp to the uk
xp

I'm sure it's just offsetting the cost of RUMPLESTILTSKIN GRINDER or w/e

Rumpelstiltskin Grinder are on Candlelight now. BURN.

listening to Free Hand by Gentle Giant man what a great record when mastodon make a record as good as this one lemme know. plus, its only 36 minutes long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRVq80EfoRY

set you back like five quid or something in the u.k. five bob even! ten pence at a car boot sale at a summer shed festival!

Rumpelstiltskin Grinder are on Candlelight now. BURN.

― Hamster of Legend (J3ff T.), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 4:15 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haaaaaah

This thread is kind of all time, by the way, even if the Nickelback comparisons have forever killed the record for me.

I can't hear Nickelback in it! Is everyone just accepting that that's for sure?

I heard Nickelback at first but it's fading after three or four listens. Second disc is growing too, but I'm still skipping a couple of tracks on it.

Just listened to this today. I heard no Nickelback but the vocals got a little Scott Stapp-ish there in some spots IMO...

This is probably my favorite Baroness record yet but yeah, its got like 5 songs too many...

i'm thinking a lot of you are maybe hearing more your idea of what chad kroeger's vocals sound like than his actual voice? cause if this is what nickelback sounded like i'd enjoy them a lot more.

i really like it, tho i'm wondering whether the 5 best tracks from this and the 5 best from the christian mistress album would make a one-disc to rock the world

^^^

otm. I thought at first you guys were just using "Nickelback" as some sort of shorthand for arena ready alt-rock, because this sounds absolutely nothing like Nickelback to my ears.

oops otm to Mordy's first post

yeah i think ppl are using "nickelback" as shorthand for "5th-generation grungy radio rock"

more in a theory of a deadman style

it was just the voice for me. though i did keep replaying their songs into my head just to make sure there was some qualitative difference and i wasn't being fooled.

I never see Gentle Giant rekkids for cheap, if I did I'd have probably made an effort to get into them

also $66 holy moly, I'm sure the vinyl for this looks pretty but I can't imagine ever caring about format enough to spend, what, four times as much as the same thing would cost on CD?

There's definitely a spectrum on this from alt-rock to whiny indie, with Little Things & Psalms Alive at the whiny end, vocally + lyrically + musically.

if you've got your headphones up too loud, that snare hit on 'green theme' is like, holy shit

"Eula" really reminds me of Cave In ca. the Jupiter LP.

yeah, that seems like a good comparison point overall.

just barely beginning to listen to this, but yellow is fantastic, holy shit. if green even half measures up, i'm a fan. don't hear nickelback in the least, btw. it's gruff, post-grunge rock-as-pop, but beyond sharing space in that theme park, the two have nothing in common. plus, it's not like i hate nickelback as the product of a generic objection to their sound palette. i hate them because they are fucking nickelback, because i am offended by their songs, musical personality and the living human presence of chad kroeger. i seems plausible that someone might make great music that happened to sound roughly similar. someone else, i mean...

"little things" is the only song i even half half want to dislike, just not a fan of angsty accusations in this kind of music. but i love the feel of the chorus and especially the bassline, almost postpunk, or like something rush might have done circa signals. and that guitar solo! also, i don't see why people are saying this isn't a metal album. it is. it's not a particularly aggressive one. i like the relative gentleness and accessibility, fwiw. and they do stomp some from time to time, like at the end of "cocanium".

love the combination of baroque, proggy psychedelia and dark, angsty 90s-style rock, like on "back where i belong" and "twinkler". shouldn't work, but does.

"fuck the purists" becomes a funnier line with every description of this I read. Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata is the best rap album of the year, fuck the purists!

In an ILM-world where we discuss Alestorm, Nightwish, Mastodon, Alcest etc on Rolling Metal idk what makes Baroness not metal. (ok maybe not Alestorm so much but insert generic troll metal band here)

Baroness is certainly not less metal than Eluviete

yellow does get a little shlocky towards the end with "sea lungs" and "eula"

Baroness is less metal than Avril Levigne </sinker>

green is mostly a drag, sadly. maybe it'll grow on me, but i got bored on the first pass. and i genuinely hate "board up the house". it's definitely got moments ("MTNS." is great, second half of "psalms alive" perks things up for a couple minutes), but this probably should have been a single album.

they are certainly trying to be a good band...like there are some riffs and musical passages that are cool...but it's like they have to WORK to be cool, they are -- to their core -- not cool, like there is something not appealing about this....it's just a high functioning "active rock radio" band

i admire the effort and all, but ultimately it's one of those albums that fails the test of "why am i spending my time listening to this instead of other things i could be listening to?"

like i can't imagine really *caring* about this unless you were somewhat invested in the idea that there needs to be quality mainstream-ish hard rock bands

like i can't imagine really *caring* about this unless you were somewhat invested in the idea that there needs to be quality mainstream-ish hard rock bands

actually that's my hope with stuff like this - I didn't really love Yellowcard & the Mars Volta & whoever else all those bands were around the time that people who'd been into the Get Up Kids discovered prog, but I kind of liked having it around. Baroness aren't the shreddingest but any time something shred-related charts I count it as a plus

i don't think you have to run music through the sorting hat before deciding whether or not you might like it. frankly, i don't think you should. ultimately, this isn't "high functioning 'active rock radio'" fodder or w/e. it's just music, and you either like it or you don't.

"cool" seems pretty meaningless as an evaluative criteria to begin with, unless you're just using it to mean "good". i mean, there's plenty of music out there that seems smart, stylish and clued-in, but which doesn't move me at all. meanwhile, i LOVE all kinds of dorky, uncool, sansabelt shit. i like this music because it's expansive, affecting and catchy. i like the musicianship, ideas, ambition and production. i even like that it doesn't seem to be particularly cool. it's both geeky and commercial, and seems to have no shame about either. i respect that. it's like wearing a headband just to keep the hair out of your eyes.

green really does yellow a disservice, though. throws all the most uncool aspect into harsh relief, while also being a big step down musically.

i think you've got that first bit backwards

i don't think you have to run music through the sorting hat before deciding whether or not you might like it. frankly, i don't think you should.

this is a whole different thread but I gotta say: I agree & yet I don't. Music's music, in the final analysis the only thing that matters is whether it brings you pleasure/joy/comfort/etc or not. And yet. Genres and scenes are often places where a common language - the music of that genre or scene - unites people and gives them voice. So while ultimately all that matters is the sound, when a band comes up through a subculture, questions of whether they're still part of that subculture are valid enough, I think; and those questions are going to involve delineating where "metal" stops and "rock" starts, etc.

i'm always rooting for good new rock bands. i'm a rock fan. but i rarely hear stuff that excites me. i think the smell of the 90's on baroness is what turns me off. i hate so much 90's rock. i just hate the way it sounds.

i like kylesa okay. i love converge a ton and i don't listen to ANYTHING that sounds like converge. so, they are definitely the exception to the rule. but converge are never gonna light up modern rock radio.

i mean i don't listen to anything else that sounds like converge. you know what i mean. i like harvey milk a bunch. another 90's band whose later stuff i like a lot more a la converge.

i don't dig torche at all. don't get the love for them. i mean i guess if i grew up on grunge i would like them more or something.

hah nothing about torche scans as "grunge" to me

post-grunge then.

i don't like torche either. not sure why, either, as i quite like the one floor album i own.

contenderizer i meant "cool" like it's not ultimately good or quality...it's a whole lot of effort being expended to not being mediocre but they are just mediocre at core.

i don't know what headbands or whatever yr talking about has to do w/it

record is also produced like shit too, really bad instrument tones for the most part, except the more gimmicky ones which are cool on occaission.

torche does this better imo, you could say the same things abt them but they have a kinda bubblegummy first two foo fighters albums vibe that i can dig on to some extent

i don't like ghost either. or high on fire. i like earthless, are they still around? i loved the last tia carrera album. that album was great. one of my favorite rock albums from last year was by the dude from pansonic! that's how weird things have gotten.

yeah, foo fighters to me are the enemy. one of the worst bands on the planet.

i mean i shouldn't bitch about how the record sounds, there will hardly be any good sounding "pro" rock albums ever from now on so i better get used to it. and this isn't particularly obnoxious or anything. it's just good bass & drum sound are lost to history mostly. :(

not liking high on fire is madness imo

i mean i shouldn't bitch about how the record sounds, there will hardly be any good sounding "pro" rock albums ever from now on so i better get used to it. and this isn't particularly obnoxious or anything. it's just good bass & drum sound are lost to history mostly. :(

fwiw the producer on the Baroness album got his chops at electrical audio and is noted for good drum tones. if they don't sound good that's a little surprising.

Genres and scenes are often places where a common language - the music of that genre or scene - unites people and gives them voice. So while ultimately all that matters is the sound, when a band comes up through a subculture, questions of whether they're still part of that subculture are valid enough, I think; and those questions are going to involve delineating where "metal" stops and "rock" starts, etc.

― tallarico dreams (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, July 19, 2012 11:18 AM (13 minutes ago)

yeah, i get that, but i'm very suspicious of the tendency to disparage things simply because they seems to belong to the wrong culture camp (paging poster g. postgarten). reminds me of how all the cool kids in the late 80s seemed to agree that like phil collins, steely dae and journey were horrible, inexcusable crap, the worst of the worst. people can like or hate whatever they want, but it just seemed like dumb groupthink, and i love a lot of music made by desperately uncool popstars.

what the hell are you talking about

your mom

think the drums (and other instruments) sound pretty good throughout

no one here did what you are describing so i'd like to know what you are talking about

i mean i shouldn't bitch about how the record sounds, there will hardly be any good sounding "pro" rock albums ever from now on so i better get used to it. and this isn't particularly obnoxious or anything. it's just good bass & drum sound are lost to history mostly. :(

fwiw the producer on the Baroness album got his chops at electrical audio and is noted for good drum tones. if they don't sound good that's a little surprising.

― tallarico dreams (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, July 19, 2012 1:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually yeah listening again and it's more...i dunno....something that rubs me the wrong way not the drums.

contenderizer, fwiw there is literally nothing could possibly care less about than what's "real" metal or whatever.

i only check out metal albums that i feel like will get slagged by the metal crV for not being trV, which is why i bothered to listen to this.

yeah i guess i am guilty of that. i've never really thought of baroness (or kylesa) as "METAL" whereas no matter what kind of record someone like Ihsahn makes they will always be "METAL" to me. but that's just silly fan/genre thinking. what are you gonna do.

and don't get me started on the sound of modern rock records. yeah, blah. ugh. all that.

i remember listening to some "metal" record that someone on the internet recommended and it was all like ambient synthesizers and stuff! who knew? i don't know how it was "metal" but i guess the most important part of being metal is being considered metal.

a lot of grumpy old men in here

i'm not grumpy at all, music is awesome just not chops nickelback

probably why i love the pansonic dude's record and stuff like necro deathmort so much, cuz its all digi-tech and was made for/on computers and sounds best on disc. hardcore techno is the metal to listen to in 2012.

wasnt talking about you m@att

i'm not grumpy either! i'm having a fine time at work and right now i'm listening to john klemmer and pete cosey do some hendrix.

A.G. you like practically everything c'mon now man. It's genuinely cool to me that you like practically everything but I can't imagine somebody making an album in this basic ballpark and you not goin' "hell yes!"

i only check out metal albums that i feel like will get slagged by the metal crV for not being trV

IOW you wanna fite well ok! u r not kvlt man I have put yr name on a LIST!!!

OK FINE LET ME GO LISTEN TO SOME SELF RELEASED FINNISH PAGAN DUNGEON GRIND TAPES

no one here did what you are describing so i'd like to know what you are talking about

― call all destroyer, Thursday, July 19, 2012 11:43 AM (1 minute ago)

i got nothing against anyone posting here, but phrases like "high functioning 'active rock radio' band" and snarky comparisons to fucking nickelback (a generic "lol we hate this" punching bag on the level of coldplay, dave matthews and billy joel) seemed unfair to me. so i pushed back a little.

Upper Mississipp check this out. my fave metal album of the year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwQ9g5rW5jg

yeah but you literally have it backwards, ppl didn't pre-decide that this record sounded like those things and then dismiss it. they listened to it and looked for comparables.

A.G. you like practically everything c'mon now man. It's genuinely cool to me that you like practically everything but I can't imagine somebody making an album in this basic ballpark and you not goin' "hell yes!"

I was the one who said there was too much filler and not top 10 album of the year material.

Phil thinks i'm one of those prefer the demos metal elitis purists like you smithy and you think i'm the opposite hahaha.
I cant win!

ps what is everyone arguing about just now? i feel i lost track about 20 posts ago.

yeah but you literally have it backwards, ppl didn't pre-decide that this record sounded like those things and then dismiss it. they listened to it and looked for comparables.

― call all destroyer, Thursday, July 19, 2012 11:54 AM (0 seconds ago)

tomato, otamot. sounded like condemnation by (vague) association to me.

anyway, i like the first half of this record. it's great in that it sounds exactly like nickelback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZKPpeuHvJk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cQh1ccqu8M

if you can't hear the similarities in timbre, you're deaf (the biggest difference is that Baroness dude has a lower resonance, which probably makes the Scott Stapp comparison more valid but these are all singers operating in the same universe ie "everything I know about singing I learned from grunge")

well sure, when ppl say "this thing reminds me of this other thing i don't like" that's what it is but you seem to be questioning the method of arrival.

I guess I'm deaf then, should go sell all my records. I don't hear it.

OK FINE LET ME GO LISTEN TO SOME SELF RELEASED FINNISH PAGAN DUNGEON GRIND TAPES

lol those were MINE before I sold them to u on POSEBAY just to see if you would find that mersh crap appealing! well u did! now I must get my headphones back on this recording of the wind over Lake Salsvatn will not wait any longer!

there was supposed to be a "skip to the chorus of 'How You Remind Me'" in that post which I apparently thought but didn't bother to type

i do hear the general similarity in vocal tone & timbre. baizley is singing in a post-grunge rock dude style. that's neither a good nor a bad thing, necessarily. it's certainly not my favorite vocal approach, but then neither is death metal burping. still, i accept that good work can be done in any style. i just think there's no fair reason to compare this album to universally acknowledged supershit band nickelback, except to score a cheap zing by association.

I am probably the biggest Nickelback defender on this thread (I actually like "How You Remind Me") so I am not sure why you are trying to pick this fight with me

I actually like "How You Remind Me"

it's cool w/you if I'm a total dick to you about this forever right? awesome thanks lol you like "How You Remind Me" it's your favorite song

i'm sure Baroness will do well on the year end metal poll so no one really needs to rush to their defense

it's cool w/you if I'm a total dick to you about this forever right? awesome thanks lol you like "How You Remind Me" it's your favorite song

knock yrself out, it's not like you to say "sorry"

I am probably the biggest Nickelback defender on this thread (I actually like "How You Remind Me") so I am not sure why you are trying to pick this fight with me

i didn't intend to fight with you. was responding primarily to the zinging upthread, in conjunction w some other stuff. accept that your comparison to nickelback was meant as a compliment.

haha it was meant as a descriptor! neither positive nor negative

I mean, my overall reaction to this album was this is pleasant and all but I don't think I need to own this

who needs to own albums? it's on spotify.

just fyi i dont give a shit if this is metal or not or w/e but i stick with the idea that this would be a pretty good album if it werent for the alteration to the singing - dudes voice was pretty great on red (like on isak! its a perfect fit and everything works there) but he seems to be trying to do something on this that a) i dont like and doesnt fit what i want to hear w/the music and b) is kinda outside his skill set so i feel like hes fucking it up fairly badly.

one of my other thoughts was that i think the drums sound pretty badass! i would buy the instrumental version of this record.

how you remind me (of nickelback)

wait a min, dan likes Nickelback?

listening to "Isak" now and it basically scans to me as "monotone grunge dude sings over Tool-influenced music" but I'm finding it a more compelling package than that reductive description would lead you to believe, likely because of the "Tool-influenced" part

yeah dan's a total 'backhead

if liking tihyrm is a crime, then i'm a criminal

fwiw I'm listening to Green again and the first thing I noticed is that dude seems to have removed all the grungisms from his vocals on the first two songs

yeah, i dunno that "isak" is a great argument for baizley's vocal abilities. he's basically just bellowing harmonically over the din. okay, but nothing special. like the singing on the new album a lot better. better tunes, too.

ok i am listening to eula right now and part of the problem is that dude is a little pitchy at pretty much all the worst times. and he is doing some stupid vowel dipthonging with shit that isnt a dipthong.

ok i take that back this dude is super pitchy through like the last half of this song and it is nearly unlistenable for me.

i think i like isak because its fairly monotone bellowing, largely because i am realizing that this dude cant sing very well.

"eula" is kind of terrible, yeah

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dTQ4Civ9X-8/S8MvPPmVKNI/AAAAAAAAIM8/5PJHavQLbCY/s400/harper+kroger.jpg

l-r: Chad Kroeger, DJP

fwiw there aren't a whole lot of gis results of Kroeger with someone not in a band so give me a break

and no, baizley's not a great singer, overall

"Stretchmarker" uses Extreme's patented "More than Words" rhythm guitar technique

i'm glad for this detour, so we could out DJP as Nickelback fanboy #1

hahahahaha the second half of "Eula" is a vocal performance worthy of Staind

yeah i am not trying to be mean at all but it is just shockingly shockingly bad, like "oh shit we used the scratch vocal on the master" level bad

Dan what are the other 9 of the top 10 worst bands you like?

Man I'm not going to stan for Baizley as some sort of "great" vocalist, but I really feel like jjjusten is listening to a different Baroness album than I am.

yeah, me too. i don't always like what baizley's doing here, but i think he acquits himself fairly well, overall.

As much as I don't really feel DJP's Kroeger comparisons, I totally see what he's getting at. Baizley's delivery here is def closer to grunge than anything else. But I don't find it so terrible.

okay, so we are agreed. his voice sucks and his band sucks and his art sucks. plus, what kind of name is baizley? dumb name. can a moderator lock this thread now?

with my shockingly bad thing there i am specifically talking abt the second half of eula. i dont think hes a great singer overall or anything but theres something specifically wrong going on in that song

lol

i will stan for his art though. he may not branch out from his core look ever, but i really love it.

ok, i'll need to give "Eula" another listen, i thought you were talking overall.

eula is real bad

feel like this record lives or dies on its hooks

wait a min, dan likes Nickelback?

that's the word on the street. one report suggests that they were seen sitting in a tree

r-o-c-k-i-n-g, in a polite Canadian kind of way

considering how long we have known each other i am def not diming on dan for any questionable musical tastes because that is straight up mutually assured destruction

http://www.advancedanime.com/pictures/normal_ms.jpg

"Go ahead....say Orange 9MM"

listening to "Isak" now and it basically scans to me as "monotone grunge dude sings over Tool-influenced music"

― PITILESS LIVE SHOW (DJP), Thursday, July 19, 2012 3:27 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fuck u dan perry go listen to some goth bullshit

― and what, Monday, October 15, 2007 3:59 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's miller time!

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m77m1uDnnm1roi346o1_500.jpg
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/425386_10151100481660359_1193043585_n.jpg
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/426822_10151100450730359_1001595256_n.jpg
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m77m1uDnnm1roi346o2_500.jpg
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/539689_10151100433725359_1679257473_n.jpg

http://deadformat.net/topic/40608/page/2

fucking gorgeous packaging...haha i don't even love it now i'm thinking about the vinyl lol i have a problem

yeah I kinda want it just for the vinyl. :/

mine came yesterday!

it seems pretty dumb that the actuall YELLOW AND GREEN version is like only 500 copies and on shitty see-thru vinyl

yeah i was too late for it mine is the orange one ltd to 1500

it seems pretty dumb that the actuall YELLOW AND GREEN version is like only 500 copies and on shitty see-thru vinyl

― camp lo magellan (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, July 19, 2012 7:12 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i already said it itt but......relapse! fuck those guys.

Orange is opaque vinyl and is gonna sound better #yolo

is that the swirly peach job, or the yellow-looking one. i like the peach. would buy, if i had 40 bucks to spend on music i'm already listening to.

anyway, i've listened to this a couple few more times. warming up to green, though it's spotty at best. figure if you swapped a couple of the better tracks in for "sea lungs" and "eula", you'd have a damn near perfect, if rather short, single album in yellow.

not sure that this music lives or dies by its hooks. i say that cuz a lot of these songs seem to get by on arrangement, texture and a burly sort of yearning - without being all that immediately memorable. personally, i think yellow's greatest strength is its sense of musical geography. in that, it suggests a 70s ideal: the album as a journey through fantastic lands. pink floyd, yes, king crimson, that sort of thing.

i do wonder, now that i've had a little time to process it, why there's so little trace of, you know, real heavy metal on this thing. i don't mind the soft, clean, processed sounds, but the "rocking out" moments are too muffled and polite to generate much heat. the fuzztone guitar at the end of "cocanium", for instance, feels like it's trying to bust out and kick some ass, but the production and arrangement keep everything too carefully reined in. the overall smoothness might even be more striking if it were subject to the occasional violent interruption.

but the "rocking out" moments are too muffled and polite to generate much heat.

this is completely otm

yeah, like hammers of misfortune go for (and often nail) the same kind of epic, slightly cheezy unicorn uplift, but they balance it out with some real chopping.

it's v. frustrating because the band responsible for this succinct blast of hooky, heavy, melodic rock with just a splash of prog sounds completely lost in the weeds now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH9KMlf7p78

well, i do like Y&G a good deal more than you, so i'll quibble with "lost in the woods", but rays on pinion is badass, yeah. not to mention:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22xFxEwcZ2Q

do wonder who ray is and what's the deal with his opinion

i mean i shouldn't bitch about how the record sounds, there will hardly be any good sounding "pro" rock albums ever from now on so i better get used to it. and this isn't particularly obnoxious or anything. it's just good bass & drum sound are lost to history mostly. :(

I think the album sounds great, but it's true that it does not try to sound like 1972. But there's a whole shitload of bands dedicated to reproducing that sound, and many are amazing, recent ones being Captain Crimson, Orcus Chylde and Kadavar. Looking forward to the new Witchcraft too.

yeah, i was thinking of witchcraft in response to m@tt's complaints about the sound, though i'm not sure why. i like the committed psych/prog 70s-ness of Y&G just as i enjoyed those elements on blue record, but i'm glad that baroness aren't a wayback machine. i respect their attempt to integrate those sounds and styles with something more modern, even if they do sometimes get stuck in the late 90s.

it seems pretty dumb that the actuall YELLOW AND GREEN version is like only 500 copies and on shitty see-thru vinyl

if you actually think clear vinyl is lower quality than opaque vinyl that is a sad comment on how much you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to vinyl

yeah, the clear kind has less optical drag

lol A+. also less heavy diffraction

buncha experts up in here

don't take it from me, talk to people who actually cut records like I've been doing for nearly 20 years

did you just say "don't take it from me, take it from me"

that is approaching "sink their boats then give them new boats" levels of awesome

experts will tell you black vinyl is best

vinyl starts out clear. then they add carbon black to it. if you think the adding of carbon black makes the vinyl sound better then you should also look into drawing around just the edge of your cds with a green marker. you have to use a special green marker though I'm the only guy I know who has them. they start to lose potency after 5-10 cds. they are 20 dollars apiece how many would you like?

did you just say "don't take it from me, take it from me"

no no - I don't "cut" records I just make music. "Cutting records" means actually producing the master. John Golden, Andy VenDette, guys like that. Please tell them about how clear colored vinyl doesn't "sound as good" as opaque colored vinyl. Then get a tattoo of the look they give you because that look will be priceless.

http://turntabling.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Man-or-Astroman-Your-Weight-On-The-Moon.jpg

^ way to go

vinyl starts out clear. then they add carbon black to it. if you think the adding of carbon black makes the vinyl sound better then you should also look into drawing around just the edge of your cds with a green marker. you have to use a special green marker though I'm the only guy I know who has them. they start to lose potency after 5-10 cds. they are 20 dollars apiece how many would you like?

i was only stating what vinyl 'experts' say.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1212/644691063_995935c97d.jpg

objectively superior

I'm with contenderizer; using vinyl records to make useful household objects like ashtrays, or placemats, is definitely a better option than attempting to listen to music on them. Vinyl sucks. Hated it in the 80s, hate it now.

ha AG no I know I'm just being a dick as usual. vinyl expert-ism is a whole field of confirmation bias & subjective response, all of which is valid really - if I have a pressing that looks so awesome to me that I'm all amped for my listening experience then probably I'm in a really receptive headspace when I sit down to listen, whereas if I've been digesting received wisdom about which colors of vinyl are best I'm probably going to be focusing hard on the flaws. The quality of the mastering job is of infinitely more importance than the color of the vinyl, as is the plant where it got pressed, but only the hardest of the hardcore even talk about this stuff - and yet, many have opinions about whether the color of the dye added to the batch changes the sound on the vinyl, which was imprinted onto it by a plate.

mastering & cutting are probably the most important steps in the process imo and if you care about the sound of your vinyl that's what you oughta study, but unfortunately that means if yr favorite band goes to the most affordable pressing plant, no other choice they make about the pressing will improve the sound. if you're really hardcore audiophile you'd get records because you like the guys who worked on them, but who listens to music like that?

No offense to anyone who pays the rent by fobbing off this totally inferior format on suckers, of course. Friends forever, Scott!

if you're really hardcore audiophile you'd get records because you like the guys who worked on them, but who listens to music like that?

Plenty of people. Usually they only listen to music made in the 60s or 70s as "music was better then" or "records sounded better then"

all of you guys should have a t.v. show together and you should call that show THE EXPERT SHOW.

i would be the cute one

I'll be the nude one

Plenty of people. Usually they only listen to music made in the 60s or 70s as "music was better then" or "records sounded better then"

what I've heard that sounds most convincing about "records sounded better then" is that the plants were running day & night and you had a surplus of dudes who knew what they were doing, because they were lifers. this makes simple intuitive sense: you could also probably buy a better manual typewriter during the era when there was a lot of competition in the field & people bought manual typewriters

yeah, my big lesson in this has been the sound quality of 70s and 80s pressings by major label artists. the records are sometimes so thin they might as well be flexi-discs (RCA's "dynaflex" and suchlike), but they usually sound great, especially in comparison to the shoddy "deluxe" crap you so often get today. the vinyl can't have been super premium or anything, it was just industry standard goo, but the product is the result of skilled craftsmen putting in a lifetime of 40-hour weeks on top-of-the-line machinery. super pro mastering, cutting and pressing - makes all the difference.

"...putting in a lifetimes of 40-hour weeks..."

not that there aren't people out there today doing excellent work

i loved this out of the gate, and it's growing on me. i now like "eula", cheesy as it is, and most of green. probably gonna be in the running for my album of the year.

this is one of those i albums i keep putting on because it doesn't actively annoy me and then i slowly grow to love it.

is this album good

if you liked the last two

It's different than the last two, that much is for sure.

I like Red but not Blue and love this

ok i have been listening through this and i def like green better than yellow

Green is def more interesting based on the playthroughs I did

although not quite interesting enough to make me want to buy it

CAN'T FORGET THE TASTE OF MY OWN TONGUE

Tastes like chicken iirc

na but I do <3 eula.

green is more varied than yellow, but the songwriting isn't anywhere near as strong, overall, imo. and i like the more elaborate production and arrangements on yellow.

you know what's kind of a better overblown arty proggy mainstream hard rock record than this? the new smashing pumpkins

ugh no. the Pumpkins record *sounds* better than they have in a while but the songs just aren't there.

Saw someone with a Baroness tshirt on today.
Well, bye.

lol

tons of kids coming into the shop w/baroness shirts, but i think thats thx to them opening for meshuggah recently

Yeah, even as a Pumpkins stan and someone who enjoys Oceania much more than I expected too, there is no way it is better than Yellow & Green.

guys i'm trying to troll whiney here c'mon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19267248

Apparently this is the Baroness tour bus. I saw them in Bristol last night, they were incredibly. Hope to fuck everyone's ok.

http://news.images.itv.com/image/file/78321/article_9a6ec1abcc35ecab_1345038807_9j-4aaqsk.jpeg

Holy shit. That really sucks.

Front page of BBC News website at the moment.

Yeah, story here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-19267414

crossing fingers. God damn.

^^^

fuck i know the tour manager, he's a soundguy at a club in town :(

"One of the pair who suffered multiple fractures was taken to Frenchay Hospital in Bristol and the other to the Royal United Hospital in Bath.

The seven with more minor injuries were taken to the Royal United Hospital (RUH)."

Thankfully it is looking like there are no fatalities. Which is very lucky when you look at the state of the coach.

It was a bit weird seeing this on the news. I walked past the coach on Tuesday night and had a good look, next time I see it it's stuck in a tree.

The seven with more minor injuries were taken to the Royal United Hospital (RUH)."

Nice of Rick Ross to deliver the news.

my favorite song on this right now is "Twinkler" ... is that weird?

No fatalities in a fucking tour bus falling 30 feet off a precipice sounds pretty damn fortunate.

my favorite song on this right now is "Twinkler" ... is that weird?

― alpine static, Thursday, August 16, 2012 8:15 AM (34 minutes ago)

not at all! it's this album's "steel that sleeps the eye" (nearly the same vocal, tbh), and "steel" is gorgeous. plus it's track 5. track 5 is always dope.

The band members of Baroness and their crew are recovering from injuries sustained after their tour bus crashed outside of Bath, England early on Wednesday morning.

John Baizley has broken his left arm and left leg. Allen Blickle and Matt Maggioni each suffered fractured vertebrae. All three remain in the hospital as of this writing. Pete Adams has been treated and released from the hospital.

Three of the five crew members who were on the bus have also been treated and released. One member is still undergoing testing. The driver of the bus remains in critical condition.

Please stay tuned for further updates. Thank you for all the support during this extremely difficult time.

from Facebook

just saw that. How serious is vertebral fracture? It does not usually impact the nerves, does it?

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/headbang-blogpost.aspx?post=2fac47f2-5654-4c35-9d5b-2fa0c9f5bb06

There was one moment in the crash that cut me deeply. For one heartbeat and one tiny sliver of time, I became disconnected entirely. It was, specifically, the moment I impacted with the glass. In that barest heartbeat of a moment, I came face to face with the infinite. I didn’t see a light, or the tunnel or hear any music. Nor did I get a “best-of” montage of my life. Instead, I felt the tip of my nose brush up against the very same fate I had accepted moments before. I looked into a cold, unreflective mirror. It was the dark, silent, dispassionate logic of the end. I realized in that moment that life can be seen as a light switch: “on” or “off”. When the moment passed and I heard the screaming, felt the pain, and tasted my own blood, I was overcome with joy. I was ecstatic to be back amidst all that chaos and horror because it was alive and real.

Very powerful.

His injuries sound horrific.

Holy shit at that.

I love this album more today than I did when I started this thread and can't wait for these guys to get back on the road and play somewhere near me. I'll be there.

More:

http://www.decibelmagazine.com/featured/deciblog-qa-baroness-frontman-john-dyer-baizley-elaborates-on-u-k-bus-crash/

I can confirm that I really really like this record!

yeah, has worn well

I couldn't really get into it, should give it another go.

Favorite 3:
Yellow Theme
Crown and Anchor
Strechmarker

Reminder: This album is awesome.

Finally got into this after a couple of years of not being able to get over the yarliness of the vocals. But damn these are some well-crafted songs.

couple of years

Ha, it hasn't even been out for a couple of years.

it's been out a year and nine months ... i think that's close enough to say what you said

i was listening to a lil eula, like, this morning i think

Back Where I Belong is my favourite.

Listened to this just this past week for the first time in over a year. Great record.

Straight up love it now. Listened twice today already.

Great record.

Theory: Baroness would be bigger than Mastodon right now if their bus hadn't crashed a month after Yellow & Green was released.

They've still got time to be bigger than Mastodon, I reckon they might be after the next album (they're poppier!).

mastodon has kind of sunk into a rut of "consistently-decent-sometimes-really-good-but-not-really-extraordinary-anymore" so baroness's time would be now.

Theory: Baroness would be bigger than Mastodon right now if their bus hadn't crashed a month after Yellow & Green was released.

I kinda agree with this, but in the world we actually live in, I feel like their moment has passed. The crash cost them a ton of momentum, plus they've had so many lineup changes over the years that now it really is just John Baizley and some sidemen; "band identity" has been lost (as represented by the tracks on Y&G that clearly feature drum machines).

Purple out 12/18. Advance track agreeably Skynyrd-meets-Pumpkins imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhS0j3WxfWY

god part of that sounds like weezer

I can never get into this band, but as long as their album covers continue with the theme of naked women continue to cuddling with sea creatures and murdering birds, they are alright by me.

Not sure I'm particularly into this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYF5FCu_M-k

Best New Music via pfork

hey i think i love this record. surprising bc i was pretty indifferent to yellow and green. sorta sounds like thrice crosspollinated with qotsa

i revisited yellow and green and this is way better than yellow and green imo

Their new drummer is very...demonstrative

Listened to this yesterday, and again this morning. I'm liking it a lot more than I did when I streamed half the promo a month or so ago. There are a couple of moments that are blatantly stolen from other bands - there's one riff that's pure Mastodon, and another that's total 70s Pink Floyd - but they're not the main riffs of songs, they just pop up for a second and then disappear again, which is weird and kinda great.

I thought it was interesting that they streamed one track from the album on each of 10 different websites this week - felt bad for Rolling Stone Australia, who got to premiere the 17-second funny-voice outro.

the chord progression in the chorus of "shock me" is just catnip for me, the way it never stops moving

Time has been kind to this album.

purple made me go back to this a lot and yeah, it's so good

This revive brought to you by wondering when the hell they're gonna announce The Other Black Album or whatever, those rehearsal videos from awhile back were exciting.

oh, nevermind. from June:

the next Baroness album has been written and the band has tracked in the studio. Baizley wouldn’t give up too much information, other than to say that Baroness are in the mixing/mastering process and the new record will break from tradition, not being named for a color.

They haven't made a bad album yet. (I don't really like their early EPs much.)

Y&G turns 10 this weekend. I wrote about it for Stereogum.