BARONESS: BLUE RECORD (2009)
1) Bullhead's Psalm; 2) The
Sweetest Curse; 3) Jake Leg; 4) Steel That Sleeps The Eye; 5) Swollen And Halo;
6) Ogeechee Hymnal; 7) A Horse Called Golgotha; 8) O'er Hell And Hide; 9) War,
Wisdom, And Rhyme; 10) Blackpowder Orchard; 11) The Gnashing; 12) Bullhead's
Lament.
Alert to lineup change: guitarist Brian Blickle
is out, leaving his brother Allen on drums, well, brotherless, and is replaced by Pete Adams. If I am not mistaken,
this does result in a slight increase of guitar soloing on the album — so
maybe they just wanted to procure the services of a flashier lead player. But
it isn't as if the replacement had led to a lot
of stylistic change: for the most part, the metal heart of Blue is genetically the same as the one on Red.
On second thought, though, I would probably
agree that it is a tad heavier, darker, and tougher than its predecessor —
which we'd expect, I guess, considering the transition from a «redder» to a «bluer»
hue. I have no idea what the band means by «Bullhead» (a fish? a town? a movie?
an undisclosed friend?), but both of the two short, «Bullhead»-inspired bits
that open and close the albums are dirge-like — grim minor key wailings that
purge the last bits of «math rock» from the band's legacy. And in between are a
lot of aggressive, war-like compositions, although, believe it or not, the sound
is still ultimately friendly: if it is battle and slaughter that the band is
singing about, then it's some sort of ancient epic battle-and-slaughter,
carried out with an honorable smile on one's face, with none of that
doom-and-gloom, «war-is-evil» bullshit invented by humanists to spoil our old
favorite game of head-gathering.
Thus, the album's centerpiece is probably ʽA
Horse Called Golgothaʼ, with the band firing away on all cylinders as
machine-gun riffage and frenzied soloing (much of which actually resembles a
neighing war horse!) assault your ears for five minutes straight. But it is
never a vicious assault: guitar tones remain brawny and bulgy, but never evil,
and although one would probably expect «a horse called Golgotha» to symbolize
something apocalyptic, this particular horse looks like it kills fascists (a
dime a dozen), rather than people of good will.
In fact, now that the band has gone even
farther retro, abandoning all pretenses to pushing the envelope forward, I know that old sound, echoes of which
they consciously or subconsciously reproduce here: the Randy Rhoads-era Ozzy
Osbourne records — the same lively, gristling-and-bristling, but never too
scary or depressing brand of metal that seeks acceptance from all sorts of
music fans, not just the «metalheads». Allegedly, there is nothing here that
even begins to approach the catchiness of Ozzy's records — because Baroness
are not a «pop» band, after all: they might like that kind of sound, but they
certainly wouldn't want you to merrily whistle it out, as it is easy to do with
the likes of ʽCrazy Trainʼ. But it's very much that kind of metal, shorn of its Eighties gloss and, perhaps, just
a little bit intellectualized.
Other tracks, apart from ʽHorseʼ, that also
invoke that analogy, include ʽThe Gnashingʼ (with yet another series of
choo-choo train riffs) and ʽJake Legʼ. ʽWar, Wisdom, And Rhymeʼ tries to be
more ominous, but mostly through the lyrics — "we are grave, we are
graves, we will die" is sung too often for the song to retain a cheerful
face, even if Baizley's grizzly-bear vocals still remain the weak point of the
band's sound, mainly because the man sounds forever stuck in one mode of
expression, regardless of the circumstances. Whether he gets to bash somebody's
head in, or whether it is his own
head that gets bashed in, you may be sure he will have the exact same howling
intonation to inform you of the results in both situations.
All in all, the bad news is that, once again, the collective atmosphere forged by
these songs, one after the other, is more interesting than the individual riffs
and solos, if you pull them apart and start comparing them to various hard rock
classics — try as they might (provided they actually do try, which I am not
sure of), Baroness are incapable of drawing an economic, concise, meaningful
sonic picture, compensating for this in «sprawl mode». (And I am not even
mentioning the occasional non-metal tunes like ʽSteel That Sleeps The Eyeʼ,
where the band harmonizes in a «poor man's Crosby, Stills & Nash» fashion —
very boring).
The good
news is that this «sprawl mode» works, and Blue
Record as a whole, with its brawny nature, relative variety, and
compositional bravoura, is definitely more than a mere sum of its parts. This
is not any sort of great praise — as heard
through this reviewer's ears, it signifies the victory of style over substance,
and that is always a disappointment in comparison to the opposite. But at
least, yep, Baroness have style, and that is already much more than can be said
about... oh, well, up to you to complete that sentence, if you are up to it in
the first place. So here we go with yet another modest thumbs up, as blue turns out to be
the new red and all.
Check "Blue Record" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Blue Record" (MP3) on Amazon
"then it's some sort of ancient epic battle-and-slaughter, carried out with an honorable smile on one's face"
ReplyDeleteWhile it's perfectly clear what you mean the analogy is a bit unfortunate. Those epic battle-and-slaughter events in Antiquity tended to be as cruel as our modern World Wars. I quite doubt eg if the Eburones had an honorable smile on their face when Julius Caesar committed genocide on them.
That's why he makes it clear that it's the kind of battle-and-slaughter in an ancient epic, rather than actual antiquity.
Delete"A Horse Called Golgotha"
ReplyDeleteCrap. This is exactly my kind of hardrock. But why oh why couldn't they hire a decent vocalist? Baizley makes Osbourne and Jon Anderson look like vocal geniuses.
I'm,betting "Bullhead" is a reference to the Melvins album of the same name.
ReplyDelete