UMUR "Red Album" is the debut full-length studio album by US, Georgia based sludge/heavy metal act Baroness. The album was released through Relapse Records in September 2007. Baroness was formed in 2003 and released a demo, two EPs, and two splits, before releasing the "Red Album". So at this point Baroness had already honed their playing skills and songwriting craft for quite a few years and on quite a few releases.

Stylistically the music on the album is progressive sludge/heavy metal featuring both clean, raw, and shouting vocals. Mostly lead vocalist/guitarist John Dyer Baizley shouts in key. There are a lot of southern, blues, and roots elements in the music, which is very guitar driven, and the two guitarists generally compliment each other well and there is some pretty intricate guitar work throughout the album. The rhythm section is also quite impressive and especially drummer Allen Blickle has quite the adventurous playing style. It´s dynamic music which can be both slow building and mellow, but also more hard edged and aggressive.

"Red Album" features a powerful, organic, and very well sounding production, which brings out the best in the material. Said material is quite creative and it´s often hard to know where a song is going to end as the tracks don´t always follow regular vers/chorus structures. It´s quite progressive in that way, and Baroness deserve all the praise in the world for their innovative songwriting approach. When that is said, the vocal melodies are seldom that memorable, and the vocals sometimes feel like an afterthought. It´s also remarkable when thinking of how adventurous and interesting the material generally is, how few actual "songs" there are on the album. It´s a lot of creative ideas and skillful playing, but very little sticks when the album is over.

So "Red Album" leaves me a little biased as unconventional and adventurous songwriting usually makes my blood boil (and to a certain degree also does here), but there still has to be some catchy moments featured, that you remember after the album has finished playing, and there simply aren´t enough of those on this album. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

Warthur Baroness' debut album offers a straight-ahead mashup of accessible traditional metal fused at the hip with progressive sludge metal of the Mastodon school. It's a solid point of entry for their work, though at the same time precisely because it's so easy on the ear and accessible it may be a disappointment to listeners coming to it after hearing Baroness' more progressive and experimental work. The material here represents creative territory which the band itself eventually moved on from, and I suspect most listeners will move on from it too, but as a gateway drug to wilder material in sludge metal territory it has its merits.

voila_la_scorie Baroness is described as a progressive metal band, an experimental/post metal band, and a sludge metal band depending on where you look. I found them while checking out sludge metal bands on Amazon. I had been kind of out of the metal scene in so far as new bands were concerned for a number of years and so I decided to see what was new out there. A lot of bands impressed me with their music but turned me off with their vocals. What ever happened to singing like Ronnie James Dio, Rob Halford, Bruce Dickenson, and Ian Gillan?

So, here was this band called Baroness with some pretty cool album covers (all designed by John Baizley (guitar/vocals) and I found that their approach to music rather appealed to me, at least after clicking on the 30-second track samples on Amazon. The vocals were still an issue for me; however, I decided that the music was good enough that I would order the CD. Actually, around this time I had decided not to be such a sourpuss about aggressive shouting vocals and roaring death growl vocals. I ordered Opeth’s “Blackwater Park” and Mastodon’s “Leviathan” at the same time in order to embrace a wider musical scope.

Off the bat, the thing that impressed me with “Red Album” was that it starts off more like a post rock album than anything else. There’s a fairly long instrumental introduction that builds until it finally gets heavy and the vocals come in. I don’t mind the shouting so much as long as I feel it suits the music. When the music is not so aggressive, I think the vocals should reflect that in most cases. I found however that the most aggressive vocal moments were too much for the music. Nevertheless, the song impressed me for its post rock/metal stylings. I hope the band will forgive me for mishearing “Rays on Pinion” as “Ray’s Opinion”.

Track one concludes and immediately “The Birthing” begins almost as if the two were one song split. The sound and style continue and I am still impressed, and accepting the vocals. However, when “Isak” flows out of “The Birthing” so that the first three tracks form a set, I begin to feel there’s a certain sameness about the songs.

That doesn’t last, though. “Wailing Wintery Wind” is over three minutes of post rock instrumental before the heavier tone sets in. My interest returns, and the album takes another turn with the acoustic instrumental “Cockroach en Fleur”, showing us that Baroness are following in ancient metal traditions by showing us their classical side. “Wanderlust” easily makes it a playlist selection with its creative composition, again playing different styles off each other. At times the vocals are actually starting to grow on me. I note that the guitars use different distortion sounds: one is heavy and gritty like on Pelican’s “What We All Come to Need” and the other is scratchy and higher toned. The drumming is also a thing to mention as we often travel outside of 4/4 time and into a mixed bag of time measure changes and odd beats plus lots of fills.

“Aleph” keeps the pace and flow of the album but it’s the instrumental “Teeth of a Cogwheel” that perks up my ears. It gets three consecutive plays on my way to work today. The sad thing is that it’s so short. The first 24 seconds are the drum intro, then the main riff with regular percussion. Then comes the treat. Something that I can only describe as 70’s rock rhythm/funk mixed with a complex tribal beat backs the riff. I am totally following the music here. Then we get a deliciously scratchy guitar solo, more impressive in sound than performance but very nicely done nonetheless. Another round of the riff while the drumming takes its former impressive path to another height. And that’s it. The song concludes at 1:55 and the last 20 seconds are just delay pedal effects.

The final tracks of “O’Appalacia” and “Grad” also stand out though keep the style of the whole album. Except for the beginning of “Isak” I didn’t feel that this album was repetitive or unoriginal. I still am not a fan of the vocals totally but musically these guys really know their stuff. Thankfully, there are two or three instrumentals and some of the songs feature more instrumental parts than sung ones.

I would give this album 5 stars for the music, but overall just four because of, well, the vocals. The shouting style suits the heavier approach of Mastodon more, in my opinion. An album worth checking out if you haven’t heard of Baroness before.

Kingcrimsonprog Baroness are an exciting sludge, stoner and prog influenced metal band from Virginia USA who play a straightforward and enjoyable version of music of which Mastodon, Kylessa, High On Fire and even Isis and Neurosis share similarities, although all on vastly varying ends of the spectrum, some largely in guitar style and tone and some on only the mildest surface similarities. If you are a fan of any of those bands or just that general area of the genre, then check out Baroness, it won’t sound like another album from one of the aforementioned bands but it is very likely the type music that you’d enjoy.

Red Album is their debut full length studio album, released in 2007 and consisting of roughly an hour’s worth of material at a mix of tempos, styles and degrees of heaviness. Highlights include the absolutely fantastic ‘Teeth Of A Cogwheel,’ which everyone curious about the band should try out, as well as the album opener ‘Rays On Pinnion,’ the single ‘Wanderlust,’ and the slow album closing instrumental ‘Grad.’

The album is produced well and the songwriting is pretty solid throughout. From almost every angle you look at it, Red Album is just a straight up excellent record, although perhaps they are missing some indefinable dynamic factor that would elevate it to classic status.

Overall; Red Album is a very good and well written album, enjoyable to listen to and that ticks a lot of the right boxes. They aren’t the most progressive prog band, the sludgiest sludge band or the most metal metal band out there, and fans expecting one extreme or another may be disapointed, however Baroness do provide a fine mixture of the styles well, with an interesting and enjoyable set of songs that you should give a fair chance to if you like this type of music.