Baroness - "Stone"
Rock solid sludge (and the 100th review of 2023)
We’ve made it to the 100th review of 2023! And who better for it than Baroness?
Baroness are a sludge metal outfit from Savannah, Georgia whose albums, before this one, have all been named after - and themed on - colors. Stone, the band’s 6th LP, breaks that trend.
By and large, Stone sounds less “sludgy” than I anticipated. There are still strong moments which firmly hold the album in that genre, but they dance along the edge of it regularly, flirting with mainline Prog and bringing in elements of a few other genres here and there.
Disregarding “Embers”, which is a minute-long intro track, Stone clocks in at 45 minutes across nine tracks. The first of these, “Last Word”, was the lead single from the album and is quintessential Baroness. It’s a powerful start, and everything I was hoping for from the album right there at the start. I mean, listen to that bassline — Nick Jost is putting in work on this song.
“Beneath the Rose” and “Choir”, which immediately follow “Last Word”, are hardcore departures from anything Baroness has ever done before, largely because of how heavily they rely on spoken lyrics. “Beneath the Rose” still has a sung chorus, which honestly just makes it more awkward. “Choir”, on the other hand, is so incredibly well-written that I can really just enjoy it as a piece of slam poetry with a metallic atmosphere. “Beneath the Rose”, by comparison, is just the ravings of a madman.
“The Dirge” is another minute-long track, but it feels like an actual, brief song, at least. It’s very light and folky.
“Anodyne” features a return to standard vocals, on a metal track, but the instrumentation feels oddly similar to “Beneath the Rose” and “Choir”. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, the band is clearly toeing the line of Sludge here. The spoken-word tracks had clearly-reduced instrumentation which allowed the spoken lines to stand out more clearly; one of the consistent elements of sludge is that everything mixes together - nothing stands out on its own, and the band’s sound is this mash of noise that is somehow beautiful.
“Shine”, the second of the album’s four 6+-minute tracks, also starts with this division still in place, but by the time the first chorus hits, it’s gone and doesn’t return. I would liken it as the metal equivalent of folding one piece of silly putty back into the jar with the rest.
“Magnolia” is the longest track on the album, at almost eight minutes. And its intro sounds remarkably like “Mtns. (The Crown & Anchor)”, which is one of my favorite tracks from Green.1 This is due to the nearly identical chime-like guitar notes which kick off both songs. On “Magnolia”, there is also the sound of wind through the trees and birdsong behind the chimes. I don’t know if the callback is intentional, but given what I know of John Baizley and the way he works, I doubt it isn’t.
The rest of the song is the sort of long you get when somebody is deep in their feelings. There’s regret here. The lyrics aren’t incredibly detailed, but the line “Now that you’re falling/I know I was wrong to let you go” tells us all we really need to know.
Of the last two tracks, “Under the Wheel” is one final sludge metal rocker, and “Bloom”, like “Dirge”, is a folky, acoustic, melancholic song. It’s a solid downtempo outro.
I have every confidence that Stone is a concept album of some sort. That’s what Baroness does - previously the central concept was always a color, and every song sort of loosely attaches to that concept. This time, the concept is “stone”, and the association with gravestones seems particularly potent here, especially given something Baizley has said on the subject:
“SURE, THERE’S DEATH, BUT THERE’S MEMORY, TOO. I FOUND THAT ALMOST PEACEFUL. THERE’S A SONG ON PINK FLOYD‘S ANIMALS WHERE THEY USE STONE AS A METAPHOR FOR A GRAVE, BUT IT’S PRESENTED IN THIS ALMOST POLITE, POETIC WAY. THAT WAS DEFINITELY GOING THROUGH MY MIND.”
The article I found that quote in doesn’t cite their source, but, given the band’s history, it tracks. Digging out exactly how each song connects is work that I have yet to do (and with Baroness’ vague lyrics, it’s honestly something I might never find the answer key for).
In the end, the album’s biggest flaw is that, aside from the two more experimental tracks, everything that’s being done on this album is something that the band has done better already. “Last Word” is really the only track that feels like it can really stand amongst the band’s older discography on even terms. And that’s frustrating, considering just how each musician, individually and in unison, really shines on this record.
The talent on display is exceptional, but the material doesn’t fully support it. The album isn’t a bust, by any means; when a band consistently puts out high-level music, like Baroness does, it just magnifies any small slips and makes a solid 8.5 look like a 7.
I’m going to sit with this one a bit longer.
Rating: Teal Green
Green was the second half of Yellow & Green, a double-album which released in 2012