Baroness - Yellow And Green (2012)

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.