A Blue Album (literally)

Until recently I didn’t listen to much metal other than Metallica and the occasional Ozzy song, but that probably doesn’t count a whole lot anymore since both bands have had their periods of musical change. Then my brother mentioned he had just caught a great metal show by the band Mastodon. So I had to check them out, and I liked the complexity of their stuff. It wasn’t overt shredding or ridiculous imagery that I had commonly associated with metal (incorrectly on my part).

Mastodon’s last two albums (Blood Mountain and Crack the Skye) were both critically and commercially successful, and Mastodon was a part of a metal scene from Georgia that has been producing some well-done metal albums. Today’s record is known as the Blue Record from fellow Georgians Baroness. The members of Baroness originally hail from Virginia but moved to Savannah. They have released two studio albums, of which Blue Record was the first to peak on Billboard’s charts.

#73 – Baroness, Blue Record (Metascore = 87)

Blue Record opens with the instrumental “Bullhead’s Psalm”, a beautiful song with reverbed guitars that segues into “The Sweetest Curse”, a melodic song with a harmonic guitar solo between John Baizley and Peter Adams, who also share the lyrics at times. “Sweetest Curse” ends with a swirling acoustic guitar piece. “Jake Leg” is a rocking song again with sweet harmonies between the two guitarists. Interestingly enough (and the lyrics seem to hint to this conclusion), “jake leg” refers to Jamaica ginger, which was used to disguise alcohol during the Prohibition period when bootleggers tried to hide their alcohol from the federal government.

The album is written around this theme of good and evil in a medieval sort of way. In some ways it feels like its angels versus demons, knights versus ogres, heroes versus villains. The songs are lyrically and musically epochal. The middle grouping of songs—“Steel That Sleeps the Eye”, “Swollen and Halo”, “A Horse Called Golgotha”, “O’er Hell and Hide”, and “War, Wisdom and Rhyme”—describe this epic battleground and the characters within it. The musicians—two guitars, a bass guitar and drums—are highly skilled and capable of harmonizing in such a way to bring forth the strength of this record.

The thing about this record I like the most is the change in dynamics. Baroness tastefully melds quiet dynamics with loud dynamics to give a robust sound of an epic. There are acoustic guitars with scant drumming and thumping bass and drums to dueling guitars locked in solos. The guitarists lock in harmony throughout while the bassist and drummer control the rhythm and hold the bottom end of the music. The songs have been carefully written with complex melodies. I don’t feel like there’s any real shredding here; just controlled, melodic playing that gives character to the songs. This album is fun to listen to again and again.