In Rainbows
METAL
Baroness
Gold & Grey
Gold & Grey ends the colour cycle Baroness started with 2007’s Red Album. In the last 12 years, the band have moved from being sludgy outsiders to standing at the forefront of metal’s cutting edge. Avoiding the grim outlook of many counterparts, Baroness have always sparkled with light and life. Gold & Grey shows them firing on all of their creative cylinders. At 17 tracks, Gold & Grey doesn’t skimp on length, either. Heavier than Purple, more experimental than Blue Record or Red Album, it skirts the high bar Baroness set for themselves with 2012’s Yellow & Green. Swampy distorted riffs dominate early numbers like “Front Toward Enemy” and “Seasons,” before diving into old-school psychedelia on “I’d Do Anything,” “Pale Sun” and “Assault on East Falls.” Gina Gleason’s mark is heard on Gold & Grey’s more technical tracks, giving the band the push they needed to jump into full-on prog territory. Mastodon covering King Crimson is a pretty strong reference point, but as “Cold-Blooded Angels” and “Borderlines” show, no label will comfortably fit them.
Baroness have outdone themselves with Gold & Grey. Armed with a fresh sound and well-honed talent, they are finally ready to be recognized as one of the most
diculous Ed “Big Daddy” Roth creation, with jutting fins, go-faster stripes, massive back tires scorching smoke, while some maniacal speed mutant tweaks with his tongue flapping in the breeze, blistering down the highway towards a knife fight between hair metal, punk and stoner rock. (Dine Alone) FOLK important bands in modern rock. As the genre ages and keeps looking backwards for inspiration, forward-thinking groups like Baroness are becoming a vital commodity. (Abraxan Hymns)
Why end the “colour cycle” with Gold & Grey?
Singer/guitarist John Dyer Baizley: It started with the colour wheel. I went to art school and studied art history and theory. The traditional artist’s colour wheel goes red, orange, green, yellow, blue and violet, so this completes a set of visual clues. We felt like we had done enough with it, so it’s time to progress and move forward. Honestly, I would never have dreamed we’d make enough albums to finish the wheel at the beginning.
What is your process for making these incredible album covers?
I make figurative art. When I do it, I’m operating within the stream of consciousness of the artistic world as a whole. Everything is a potential influence and a potential lesson for me. Lately. I’m not looking at stuff for inspiration, I just draw all the time. A big project, like an album cover, does take a couple hundred hours though.
founder of experimental rock band Bruce Peninsula — is a storyteller. On each of Trying to Have It All’s nine vivid tracks, Bower shares stories about love, loneliness and the sharp tendrils of regret. There’s a ghostly quality to the album’s layered folk songs. Bower, with a persistently commanding voice, wails and snarls, depending on the story she’s telling, while the gentle croons of backing vocalist Lisa Conway (L CON) provide a smoke machine-like mist that adds to the eerie ambience. In addition to Conway, Bower is joined by a stellar group of backing players: Will Kidman (guitar and piano), Nathan Lawr (drums), Dallas Wehrle (bass), and Mika Posen, Kelly Larochette, Jill Sauerteig and Julia Narveson on strings. Kidman’s frisky guitar work energizes the playful “Love That’s Loose,” and on the strong opener “Starless Nights,” he unleashes a guitar solo that cuts a jagged hole in the night sky while the string quartet craft dramatic pitches mirroring the “big-city lights.”
With Trying to Have It All, Bower and her supporting cast, craft densely emotional stories that linger long after you put this collection back on the shelf. (Bruce Trail Music/Outside)