Baroness – Blue Record
Relapse, 2009
5/10
Georgia’s Baroness walk a fine line between noisy alternative rock and metal that fails more often than it succeeds. Blue Record strikes me as an album that will be a critic’s favorite at certain glossy rock magazines in an attempt to maintain indie credibility. Sorry, but this heavy garage rock just doesn’t stand up to a metal fan’s taste. “The Sweetest Curse” and “Jake Leg” are bruisers that steamroll a wide path before the acoustic interlude of “Steel That Sleeps The Eye”. “Swollen And Halo” next takes the album in a spacey, loose direction, and the instrumental “Ogeechee Hymna” loses its pace in a wall of guitar distortion. Things finally pick up in the second half with more melodic, faster paced songs like “A Horse Called Golgotha”, “O’er Hell And Hide”, and “War, Wisdom And Rhyme”. This trio of songs can’t, however, recover the thick morass of sludge that comprises the rest of the album. Another short acoustic instrumental opens into “The Gnashing”, slow-building rocker, before closing out with the dirge-like “Bullhead’s Lament”. I don’t know, this sort of crushing, cerebral noise just doesn’t get me excited. The vocals are gruff, monotonal, and hard to listen to, and the open, unrestrained drum sound makes my head hurt. Alternative rock fans will likely appreciate Blue Record more, but most metalheads will want to steer clear of this.
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