Baroness-Yellow and Green

2012

This is the album I have given the most spins during the last week or two. Yet I still struggle to pin down how I felt about it up until recently. Over the last couple of years Baroness have gotten a lot of credit and a fair amount of hype. Some of that was deserved and other times I felt they hadn't quite done enough to deserve the status that others felt they deserved so early in the game. The descriptions of their music has varied some. The reason behind that is likely that they dove into various styles including stoner-rock, progressive and various metal elements. On this album they touch on all of the above plus they bring in more psychedelic elements as well. This album was a lot to digest as it clocks in around 75 minutes. Not just the length of the album that required consideration but the amount of sounds that are brought into play on this album as a unit. My first thoughts are that is album is their most adventurous and varied to date, but it's also the least metal of their releases. That last part may scare some people and it initially had me hesitant about where they were going here, but don't let that be the case. This album is not exactly where I thought they'd go with this album, but eventually I appreciated what they are doing here. The extra length to the album is due to there being a yellow half and a green half. I really don't feel like the two have widely different sounds on personalities. Instead they just blend together and feel like part of the same album and some of the songs even sound more than a little similar. Yet it never really gets old because the majority of the songs are easy to get into. Some people may see this album as accessible to an extent. I wouldn't argue that statement, but it's actually a plus in this case. Mellow is a term that may get attached to their work here at least in comparison to their other work. Yet as I here tracks like "March to the sea", "Sea lungs", "Collaps" and "Stretchmarker" I can only admire how tight these guys have become. What amazes me the most on this album is their skill at putting so many parts and tempo changes into relatively short songs. This wasn't the album I expected, but I am not going to argue with the results because "Yellow and green" is an album that has dominated my CD player the past couple of weeks. I can't argue that and even though this wasn't the style I figured they would follow it's still an overwhelmingly stellar album that eventually had me hooked..