New Baroness streaming on NPR..

[zachoff]

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/08/156292608/first-listen-baroness-yellow-and-green

Rad.

[Cursed71]

Listening to it now.  My coworker asked if it was nickelback. Damnit!

[zachoff]

Yeah, it has its moments, but overall it's soft-ish. 

[eoin_not_ian]

I saw them live the other day and they were awesome. I also chatted to them for a bit afterwards and they were all super nice guys.

I am going to wait until I can physically buy the new album before I completely form an opinion on it. Just now though I am not the biggest fan, but its their band and they can choose whatever direction they want. I just prefer the Red Album and the Blue album at the moment. It may be a grower though.

[Baxandall]

I saw them live the other day and they were awesome. I also chatted to them for a bit afterwards and they were all super nice guys.

I am going to wait until I can physically buy the new album before I completely form an opinion on it. Just now though I am not the biggest fan, but its their band and they can choose whatever direction they want. I just prefer the Red Album and the Blue album at the moment. It may be a grower though.

The Blue album had to grow on me after listening to the Red album forever.  It did and I love it now.  I suspect the same thing will happen with the Yellow album.

I'm really holding out to see what is in store for the Green album!

[I,Galactus]

The Blue album had to grow on me after listening to the Red album forever.  It did and I love it now.  I suspect the same thing will happen with the Yellow album.

I'm really holding out to see what is in store for the Green album!

This.

[clockwork green]

I was reading the review of this on Pitchfork (which never fails to piss me off but this is what happens when I run out of guitars to look up online) and I've got to say that I'm a little ticked off by this line that I found:
I recently interviewed Baizley about the record. He detailed how the group's idea of heaviness shifted from their early days to the present. He explained that "tricks" like "10 amplifiers on stage, a ton of volume, and notes on [a] guitar that were more appropriate for bass guitar" were a kind of "artifice to mask youthful songwriting."
Maybe he's too grown up to tune down and crank his amp up...I guess I've got a few years togo before I start ripping off Nickelback or starting roaming high schools in search for thrown out high school poetry to use as lyrics. 

[eoin_not_ian]

I was reading the review of this on Pitchfork (which never fails to piss me off but this is what happens when I run out of guitars to look up online) and I've got to say that I'm a little ticked off by this line that I found:
I recently interviewed Baizley about the record. He detailed how the group's idea of heaviness shifted from their early days to the present. He explained that "tricks" like "10 amplifiers on stage, a ton of volume, and notes on [a] guitar that were more appropriate for bass guitar" were a kind of "artifice to mask youthful songwriting."
Maybe he's too grown up to tune down and crank his amp up...I guess I've got a few years togo before I start ripping off Nickelback or starting roaming high schools in search for thrown out high school poetry to use as lyrics. 

Yes, it is quotes like that kind of turn me off at times, even though they were all super nice when I met them.

I know that Baizley is an 'artist' but at times I feel that he has ideas above his station and the way he has promoted this album through interviews has actually really perplexed and angered me. I mean there is a point to the quote above in the sense that tuning down to A and overdriving an amp like hell won't necessarily make a band  sound good or lead to the creation of interesting music. However I also believe that fewer notes, less distortion, cleaner vocals, non-downtuned guitars, more ballads and more album tracks will also not necessarily lead to 'better songwriting'.

Its pushing an incredibly naive and artistically lazy notion that true artistry in terms of music is found in melodic vocal-led music. Not only that but that more complicated more instrumental-led music is an 'an artifice to mask youthful songwriting', rather than being an example of 'good compositional skills'. Using that logic, if Mr Baizley had his way, classical symphonies and concertos would never have existed as they usually contain loads of different parts and there are generally no clean vocal melodies!

As someone who loves heavier music amongst other genres, I find Mr Baizley's depiction of lower-tuned, distorted loud music of somehow having less artistic merit as being damn near offensive. Tunings, amplifiers and distortion levels are the musical equivalent of the canvas and paint used by a painter. A generic painting is still generic no matter what paint or canvas is used and a good song/composition is good no matter what tuning it is in or how distorted it is. I'm surprised that as an artist. Mr Baizley would take the exact opposite view. Of course with the subjectivity in art and music it could perhaps be argued that there is no such thing as 'bad art', though thankfully Puddle of Mudd exist to counter that point.

I actually don't mind the new album that much (some very good songs but lots of mid-paced ballads that blend together, and an annoying picky bass sound that is clumsily played at times), but I believe they could have promoted it in a way that doesn't seem to demean anybody who actually likes lower tuned, more complicated, multi-layered instrumental music. Just say 'we wrote a bunch of songs in a different style and we are are really proud of them' rather than try to frame your music in the style of an artist's statement.

I like the band and I really do like Mr Baizley's artwork, but I had to vent on this point.
Rant over.

[I,Galactus]

Having read exlusively that interview quote within a criticism quote, I took Baizely's meaning to be that Baroness' usage of said "tricks" was to mask their lack of skill in songwriting, not necessarily what he thought of all acts that use lots of amps and heavily detuned guitars.

However, I may just be inferring what I'd prefer be true.  /pink spectacles


Edit: Subject-verb agreement is a bitch.

[eoin_not_ian]

Having read exlusively that interview quote within a criticism quote, I took Baizely's meaning to be that Baroness' usage of said "tricks" was to mask their lack of skill in songwriting, not necessarily what he thought of all act that use lots of amps and heavily detuned guitars.

However, I may just be inferring what I'd prefer be true.  /pink spectacles

You might be right and if so I will obviously give him the benefit of the doubt, but from the general overviews of interviews I have read/seen in the lead up to the release of this album I did get undertones of 'we are writing real music now. Real music is composed of hummable vocal melodies. Hummable vocal melodies = songs. Hummable vocal melodies with disco beats and clean guitar = awesome songs! Complicated instrumental tracks with low tunings, lots of distortion and with little vocals = not songs. Not songs = poor songwriting. Poor songwriting = not writing real music'.

Maybe I am actually directing this at one of my ex-bandmates rather than Mr Baizley. I really don't know anymore at this point!

[I,Galactus]

Maybe I am actually directing this at one of my ex-bandmates rather than Mr Baizley. I really don't know anymore at this point!

If green & yella doesn't do it for ya, just disregard.  Life's too short to get all riled up.

[RAGER]

It's a terrible thing when a musician grows and expands and feels good and confident about it.  Sheesh.  I'm glad I don't play anything like I used to.

p.s.  this sort of stuff belongs in the album reviews section.  it needs a little more traffic

[tossom]

It's a terrible thing when a musician grows and expands and feels good and confident about it.

Dave Wyndorf knows all about growing and expanding...

This




To this



Sorry...

[clockwork green]

It's a terrible thing when a musician grows and expands and feels good and confident about it.  Sheesh.  I'm glad I don't play anything like I used to.

p.s.  this sort of stuff belongs in the album reviews section.  it needs a little more traffic

Does that really sound like confidence to you? To me it sounds incredibly insecure and defensive. He sounds like he had a bitter breakup and now feels the need to bash his ex in order to feel better about it. I'm all about non-traditional forms of "heavy"...Michael Gira singing by himself with a standard tuned acoustic guitar is far heavier than Baroness, Sunn, or just about any other heavy band. I don't have a problem with melody, Baroness will never be as melodic (or as heavy) as Torche or 40-Watt Sun. There's no need to bash other bands that have embraced lower tunings or high volume...when Baroness become 1/10th the band Neurosis is it'll be news to me...hell this interview was done while Baroness was on tour with Meshuggah which he "loves" according to the rest of the interview, kinda hard to tune lower than they do. Maybe his next stage of development will involve not burning bridges. I'll be busy with juvenile songwriting filled with plenty of artifice.

[taylo)))r]

there are some good tunes on this new record, but on the whole a lot of it just sounds like radio crap. i read that part of the reason they are "singing" more is that screaming all the time was really hard to sustain over the course of a tour, which i could definitely see. that being said, the vocals sound great recorded on this record, but they sound like fucking garbage live. shit is always harder to pull off live, but if you can't harmonize or sing in key most of the time, maybe don't do it?  it is kind of like mastadon for me. sounds great recorded, not so great live.

I can respect the fact they went in this direction to be able to get more fans and be able to make a living playing their music, but im just not digging it as much.

There are a handful of tracks on it that are cool/interesting, but it is something I wont listen to much. One song sounds like pinback? Weird.

[RAGER]

I don't see anything wrong with reflecting critically on your own past work.  It's yours, you can say what ever you want about it.  that's what he's saying.  I don't think he's ripping on anybody else or sounding defensive.  There's lots of stuff that I listen to that I would'nt dream of playing because it's not challenging enough for me but I don't have anything against it.  He's saying this is where they are now as a band.  I'm sure he's proud of their older stuff.  I wish I could say the same thing.  Some of the stuff I used to play is godawful.

That being said, It's not my favorite Baroness either but I'm not gonna begrudge somehow for evolving.  Now that I'm older and half deaf, I'm considering a master volume amp

[clockwork green]

There are plenty of complaints out there about this album but I don't hear people saying they don like that they've decided to change their sound, it's what they changed to and how it's much lower quality than the older material. Also, how can you not apply what they've said to other bands? "What we used to play was a fraud full of cheap cliche's and trick to attempt to sound heavy but now that we're wise old men, we know exactly what heavy truly is...everyone else that tunes down and plays loud is fine though, you guys rule." I'm not buying that.

It's beyond obvious that we should all evolve and we all are whether we want to or not and that's often going to mean moving away from some people whether you mean to or not. I don't expect every band I'm into today to be my favorites for life but this is a lesson how not to "evolve".

[RAGER]

To each their own man.  All this stuff is totally subjective.  That's why I usually don't participate in these discussions.  I got something else out of those statements.
/cheers

[giantchris]

I agree with my sister's review of the album

"Parts of it sounded exactly like the quiet parts on the blue album.  It was just boring and the singer was whining about his ex the whole time like a bitter old pussy"

I'm not a fan of the mix either the guitars are way too bright and the vocals are too loud and the bass is indistinct.  Hell the drums could be a little louder too.  When both guitars are playing with distortion it sounds like shit.

[everdrone]

It's a terrible thing when a musician grows and expands and feels good and confident about it.

Dave Wyndorf knows all about growing and expanding...

This




To this



Sorry...

I dig

dig his band too, even his new album was pretty killer


p.s. enjoying the new baroness on spotify

[Jake]

It seems to me that the type of person who would get upset with this album is also the type who have been vicerally angry about the Star Wars prequils.

This album is as solid as any, IMHO.

I like The Money Pit. That is my answer to that question.

[clockwork green]

Oh not only do I hate the prequils but I really hate the new and improved originals...Han shot first!

[Baxandall]

I've been listening to it for 2 days now.  I like it.  Softish is OK for this old man.

[jibberish]

my take on baroness is nice relaxing music that is easy to listen to.   i dont see anything clever about it, but i dont think that is what carries them.  i have zero desire to even check any more of their albums out. if i come across one, sure i'll listen.