Baroness – Yellow and Green
July 17th, 2012
Progressive Sludge Metal / Progressive Rock
Relapse Records
Savannah, Georgia, USA
Having revisited the band’s first two releases, Red Album and Blue Record, we come to the first album from the band that I wasn’t exactly head over heels for upon first listen way back when it came out. This record to me represents a bit of a stylistic shift in the band, maneuvering subtly away from the heavier sludge leanings of the prior two records and leaning further into the progressive rock aspect of their sound that has always been present from the onset. It’s also the first double album from the band as well as the first of their releases to nix the album or record word from the title, instead utilizing just the names of the colours themselves.
The first time I dug into this album when it was initially released I found myself somewhat disappointed. The songs weren’t as heavy and the aggressive catchiness felt like it had been supplanted by more of a focus on atmospheric and ethereal pieces that were less riff-oriented. That’s not to say that none of the cuts on here are catchy, however. That’s absolutely not the case. “Take My Bones Away” has, in the intervening years, become one of my favourite songs from the band, while other cuts like “March to the Sea”, “Eula”, “Psalms Alive”, and “Stretchmarker” are easy stand-outs amidst the tracklist. By and large though it does feel like the extended fangs of the first two releases have been retracted a little bit. The album has much more of a contemplative vibe to it.
John Baizley’s voice here continues the trajectory established on Blue Record. While still loud, of course, his voice is much more dialed back. There is less of the deep, bristling bellow found on the band’s first record, and instead Baizley focuses much more on the melodic sort of crooning that he started doing on their previous release. It feels like he’s drawing more inspiration from the worlds of alternative rock, grunge, and even indie rock with his vocal performance here. I’m not saying that I’m disappointed in this turn towards the more melodic or that I feel the performance is bad in any way. It’s ultimately just not as to my tastes as the vocals on the previous records. However, I still think Baizley’s vocal performance here is well done and suitable for the kind of instrumentation going on on this album.
Coming to the string section we see that Summer Welch has departed the band and now Baizley is handling both guitars and bass as well as the keyboard section, joined once again by Peter Adams on second guitar as well as backing vocals. I find that the riffs here are still just as complex and multi-layered as they ever were on the previous two records, perhaps even more so. There’s a lot of complicated picking patterns and flittery riffs that conjure comparisons to the band’s contemporaries in Mastodon, alongside all of that sweet southern influence that bleeds into their melodies, especially during the acoustic passages. However I do find that this record is a lot more heavy on the effects pedals than Red or Blue. It’s not that those two records didn’t have this kind of effect fuckery going on, but here it feels a little bit more unfocused. There’s a lack of consistency going on in the way the guitars and bass sound from song to song, to the point where it sometimes feels like I’m not really listening to songs from the same album. I’m not against experimentation in any way but to some degree the way that the sound of these instruments change from song to song is so abrupt that it ends up turning me off of the whole picture.
Drummer Allen Blickle is still just as great as he ever was and once again is a key part to making Baroness sound the way they do. Much like the rest of this album though I feel he is keeping his performance a little bit low key on purpose. Much in line with the more alt rock and prog rock leanings that Yellow and Green is engaging in the drums too are decidedly more simplistic and driving in contrast with the more explosive and chaotic drumming found on Red and Blue. However some of the elements introduced on Blue Record, namely Blickle’s employment of the disco beat, is increased on this album, adding more to the rock element and subtracting from the pummeling nature of the sludgier sound that the band is now moving away from. Still, Blickle holds his own behind the kit and provides exactly the kind of intricate and yet understated performance that this kind of music needs.
This album also features a bit of a different production style in comparison to the previous works. While John Congleton and Alan Douches have returned once again for mixing and mastering respectively, it’s clear that Yellow and Green is being approached from a bit of a different angle than the previous albums. The vocals are much more layered and reverb-drenched than the band’s previous works, and once again there is a heftier focus on the utilization of different effects that produce an overall psychedelic pastiche which coats the sound of this LP. It’s a little bit disappointing because I much prefer the more raw and down to earth approach that Red Album and Blue Record possessed, but it ultimately doesn’t turn me off from the record entirely.
I think really where this record loses me the most is in the fact that its a double album. This isn’t to say that any of the songs on here aren’t deserving of attention or that they’re bad, but it does feel like this record suffers from a lot of bloat due to the fact that it contains 18 tracks and clocks in at 1 hour 14 minutes. It’s not the longest record I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’m not opposed to long releases, but I feel like this double album would’ve been better suited being released separately instead of one cohesive package. By the time “Eula” finishes and “Green Theme” begins I’m ready to start listening to something else, and I suppose I technically could, but this record is released as one cohesive piece and therefore I feel like the intent is for the listener to go through the whole thing start to finish.
While I may sound like I’m coming down on this album a lot it’s only because Red Album and Blue Record were so damn good that surpassing those two releases may be a near impossible feat for the group. It also comes from the fact that I’m not a super huge fan of listening to double albums and they just kind of turn me off sometimes. Still, I love Baroness to death and they’ve been a favourite band of mine for a long time. Therefore I’m pretty much guaranteed to find something worth loving about whatever they put out. Yellow and Green is perhaps one of my least favourite records from the group, but it’s still a damn fine album if you can get past the bloat and the somewhat overblown production.
Final Verdict: 8/10
Great
Favourite Tracks:
“Take My Bones Away”
“March to the Sea”
“Little Things”
“Cocainium”
“Eula”
“Board Up the House”
~ Akhenaten
Where Strides The Behemoth? 