{"id":6281,"date":"2012-07-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=6281"},"modified":"2015-12-18T10:45:11","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T10:45:11","slug":"album-review-baroness-yellow-and-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-baroness-yellow-and-green\/","title":{"rendered":"BARONESS – Yellow & Green (2012) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

BARONESS
Yellow & Green<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nRelapse (2012)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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There are some critics hailing Yellow & Green<\/em>, the third full-length from Baroness, as the \u201calbum of the year\u201d. It\u2019s not \u2013 but it certainly stands out as amongst the best releases of 2012 so far.<\/p>\n

Suppressing the Mastodon comparisons, what the Savannah, Georgia-based quartet have crafted on this double-album effort will not only appeal to your thinking metalhead, as on \u2018March To The Sea\u2019, but also open up a potential new audience from across the whole musical spectrum, with something to satisfy everybody from classic and alternative rock fans all the way to your casual Kings Of Leon fan.<\/p>\n

Dividing your new release into two albums in the age of downloads is certainly a brave thing to do, but ideally the whole thing has to be listened to in its entirety. The \u201cYellow\u201d side contains the two most commercial tracks, \u2018Take My Bones Away\u2019 and the aforementioned \u2018March To The Sea\u2019, which are also two of the most rocking tracks on the album, with John Baizley\u2019s melodic vocals shining through lush choruses playing against winding guitar riffs and tribal drum patterns. Just these two songs alone are worthy of the acclaim that Baroness are now garnering from fans, press and their peers alike. This is thoughtful, well-crafted rock that although is firmly rooted in the present, emanates the same kind of mood the classic rock bands of the 70s and 80s wallowed in, partly due to the warm analogue-sounding production.<\/p>\n

However, the biggest talking point of this project is the band\u2019s lighter moments, of which there are plenty. \u2018Cocainium\u2019 starts off like a Pink Floyd trip, a reference that crops up throughout the 74-minute duration of the album(s).<\/p>\n

In fact, the main drawback of the album is the subtler tones used throughout. Although generally well-thought out and executed, the ratio of shoe-gazing against foot-stompers is maybe a tad too high. One gets the impression that playing songs like \u2018Back Where I Belong\u2019, \u2018Eula\u2019 and \u2018Foolsong\u2019 is cathartic for the band somehow, and that the lighter shades are necessary to avoid rock burn-out and certainly a departure from the sound they displayed on their previous albums, Red<\/em> (2007) and Blue<\/em> (2009). \u2018Stretchmarker\u2019 even echoes Extreme\u2019s ghastly \u2018More Than Words\u2019! <\/p>\n

Of the two halves, \u201cYellow\u201d succeeds more maybe due to the fact it contains the more instant tracks, whereas the \u201cGreen\u201d half meanders a bit in places. But the whole affair does reward repeated listens, allowing the softer interludes to make more sense in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n

This could well be the platform that sees Baroness achieve greater things \u2013 time will tell. But hopefully the follow-up will see them bring a little bit of heaviness back to their sound, although we may have to wait for the \u201cTurquoise Record\u201d for that.<\/p>\n

Neil Not<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BARONESSYellow & Green Relapse (2012)Rating: 8\/10 There are some critics hailing Yellow & Green, the third full-length from Baroness, as the \u201calbum of the year\u201d. It\u2019s not \u2013 but it certainly stands out as amongst the best releases of 2012 so far. Suppressing the Mastodon comparisons, what the Savannah, Georgia-based quartet have crafted on this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-baroness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6281"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38467,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6281\/revisions\/38467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}