Yellow & Green
Baroness audaciously moves far beyond the conventional confines of metal on its third album, *Yellow & Green*. This two-disc set (the latest in a series of color-themed releases from the Georgia quartet) incorporates an amazing array of hard and soft sonic textures as it freely shifts between delicate interludes and harrowingly heavy passages. “Twinkler” and “Cocainium” shimmer with Fleet Foxes–like vocal harmonies, while “Take My Bones Away” and “Board Up the House” flex the group\'s rock biceps with brutal riffage and slamming drumwork. Baroness knows how to delve into prog-rock complexity (“Psalms Alive”), ride currents of overdrive guitar (“Sea Lungs”), and settle into the misty shoals of melancholy folk (“If I Forget Thee, Lowcountry”). What binds these sprawling tracks together is the lyrics\' pervasively ominous mood, hinting at psychic crises and societal chaos with imagery recalling Pink Floyd at its most alienated. Songs like “Eula,” “Collapse,\" and “The Line Between” lace their darkly surreal visions with undercurrents of irony and spiritual longing.
Baroness' Yellow & Green finds a band that has developed into more than just giants of the metal underground, they are now fully formed hard rock titans. Fans of the band have come to expect nothing less than constant evolution from Baroness and that is precisely what the band has delivered, but in ways noone could have anticipated: the hooks are immediately seared into your brain, riffs that take just one listen to fully lodge themselves in your consciousness and vocals that are sung both heavily and beautifully. Some songs are more delicate than Baroness ever hinted to before while others are straight up arena rockers—yet all along Yellow & Green is unmistakably the Baroness that the world has come to love and look to for Record Of The Year quality rock and roll. It’s not hard to imagine any one of the 18 songs that fill out the Yellow & Green 2CD/2LP being rock radio anthems, and deservedly so. At no risk of hyperbole Baroness’ ‘Yellow & Green’ is on a very short list as one of the new millennium’s best rock records.
A decade into their career, Baroness continue to take chances. On this double album, that means experimenting with length and adding a new focus on melody. It's an epic record that is heavy in a new way.
Once categorized as a sludge-metal or prog-metal outfit, Georgia’s Baroness has been gradually shedding its gnarlier skin with each successive release, most recently adding touches of dreamy psychedelia and post-hardcore to its 2009 breakout, Blue Record. But on Yellow & Green, the group’s expansive, indulgent…
Discover Yellow & Green by Baroness released in 2012. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.
On Yellow & Green, the Savannah, Georgia rock unit's sound continues to evolve in a similar fashion as their two previous color-themed albums.
In the beginning, it appeared BARONESS was chasing the sludge-prog shadows of MASTODON and ISIS. Between "The Red Album" and their 2007 split with UNPERSONS, "A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk", the uber-talented BARONESS initially made a name for themselves by turning ugly tones into frequently stunning...
There’s plenty to say about the sonic gulfs that separate Yellow & Green from Baroness’ past work, but the primary difference here is in attitude. Blue Record was a concentrated draught of snarling triumph; this (double) album brings the actual blues. Yellow & Green unwinds an arresting arra
Baroness - Yellow and Green review: Board up the house! Hide your boys and girls!