BARONESS: PURPLE (2015)
1) Morningstar; 2) Shock Me;
3) Try To Disappear; 4) Kerosene; 5) Fugue; 6) Chlorine & Wine; 7) The Iron
Bell; 8) Desperation Burns; 9) If I Have To Wake Up (Would You Stop The Rain);
10) Crossroads Of Infinity.
Apparently, less than one month after Yellow & Green came out, Baroness
were caught in a horrible accident when their bus fell from a viaduct somewhere
near Bath, England (touring is evil!); miraculously, everybody survived at the
cost of some broken limbs and fractured vertebrae, but the whole thing still
left the band shaken, debilitated for some time, and ultimately led to the
departure of the entire rhythm section, making Baizley the sole remaining
original member. They did return to touring at the end of 2013, but it wasn't
until early 2015 that they felt themselves properly refreshed and recovered to
return to the studio, with new members Nick Jost on bass and Sebastian Thomson
on drums (Pete Adams remains as second guitarist).
Of course, it is nice to see a band brave the
odds and overcome Fate by stubbornly clinging to its own self-designed destiny.
The problem, however, is that after the diversity and experimental nature of Yellow & Green, the accident seems
to have turned Baroness into testosteronic sentimentalists — Purple is not so much about the music
as it is about wailing and lamenting. "All of us tinderwood / Bound for
the fire", we are told in the very first track, and references to
"deep wells of despair", "desperation burns", "killing
the lights", nursemaids "cutting through my ribcage", and other
unappetizing events and abstractions are to be found just about everywhere. You'd
think they should be praising God for saving their flesh, but it's amost as if
they'd be feeling better if that bus crash had taken them directly to God.
Maybe I was right, and they are
turning into Radiohead after all?
Then again, if a band that once used to revel
in the still-infinite possibilities of riff-molding wants to make an album
centered around gloom and depression as a central topic, that should not constitute
a crime as such. The real downside is
that, by and large, this new music of theirs just sucks. "These are some
of the biggest, strongest songs that Baroness has written", states a
reviewer on Pitchfork, and many others join in the fray with equally adamant
reactions. What the heck? Am I alone, then, in thinking that about half of this
album sounds like friggin' Nickelback — loud, brash, monotonously distorted
alt-rock with the same dull, forgettable sheen throughout? And the other
half... well, sounds like someone trying
not to sound precisely like Nickelback, but not being very good at it?
The first song, ʽMorningstarʼ, opens
proceedings with a pleasant promise — a thick, sludgy metal riff, some
math-rockish guitar interplay in the bridge section, an anthemic chorus,
signature changes along the way, and a desperate, but clean caveman growl from
Baizley; strangely reminiscent of Amorphis or some other heavy metal band
wobbling between «melodic death metal» and «progressive metal». Fine enough,
yes, but when song after song is unwrapped before your eyes featuring exactly the same style — tempo, tone,
mood, vocal intonations — and when many of those songs, beginning with ʽShock
Meʼ, cannot even bother to arm themselves with strong riffage, how are they
even defensible?
Okay, if you thought the Nickelback comparison
was too humiliating, I apologize (after all, these guys are definitely better
equipped from a technical point of view, and there is no denying a certain
level of complexity required from most of these songs), but still, there's
absolutely nothing on Purple that
you cannot already find in much better quality on an Amorphis or, for that
matter, an Opeth album. I insist that it is impossible
in 2016 to simply put all your trust in a bunch of derivative heavy riffs and
one singer's «vulnerable Viking» vocal style and come out with a non-boring,
much less awe-inspiring album — which is precisely what they are trying to do
here. The only consolation is that at least they did not try to stretch it to
70 minutes.
Unfortunately, this safe, comfortable formula
is very easy to conform to (see my Amorphis reviews for reference), which might
well signify that Baroness are over for me as a potential point of attraction.
I am amazed at waves of reviewers who have awarded the usurped imperial clothes
of Purple with fairly high ratings —
all I can suggest is that they manage to do the impossible and view the songs
completely out of context, conveniently forgetting everything about Baroness'
own past, as well as the entire past of heavy metal as a genre. That is not
something I'd ever be able to do, as necessity drives me to give the album a thumbs down
rating — I mean, I'm sorry about the overturned bus incident and all, but then,
why should a personal tragedy necessarily lead to a public one? At least from
my perspective, this is bland, boring, derivative muzak that totally misplaces
the band's talents and never rises up to the task of properly moving the
listener; here's hoping that, once the trauma is finally overcome, they will return
to what they do best (kicking ass) instead of pushing this crappy
pseudo-soulful grunge-metal on us.
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