Gold & Grey Baroness

• 1 Front Toward Enemy 03:44
• 2 I'm Already Gone 03:50
• 3 Seasons 04:26
• 4 Sevens 02:05
• 5 Tourniquet 05:45
• 6 Anchor's Lament 01:39
• 7 Throw Me an Anchor 04:00
• 8 I'd Do Anything 04:10
• 9 Blankets of Ash 01:04
• 10 Emmett - Radiating Light 04:12
• 11 Cold-Blooded Angels 05:38
• 12 Crooked Mile 00:41
• 13 Broken Halo 04:24
• 14 Can Oscura 02:01
• 15 Borderlines 06:16
• 16 Assault on East Falls 02:19
• 17 Pale Sun 04:14
• Total Runtime 01:00:28

Info for Gold & Grey

Die Grammy-nominierte Rockband Baroness meldet sich mit ihrem fünften Studioalbum Gold & Grey zurück. Das bislang ambitionierteste Werk des Quartetts aus Georgia erscheint auf ihrem eigenen Label Abraxan Hymns und sprengt alle Genre-Barrieren. Hymnische Alt-Metal-Hooks treffen auf knisternden Prog und Jazz, stimmungsvollen Spacerock und Noise, hypnotisch pulsierenden Trip Hop und den Minimalismus des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Sänger Baizley sieht das abwechslungsreiche und abenteuerliche Album als einen Schritt weg vom stromlinienförmigen, unmittelbaren Gitarrenrocks von Purple . Das letzte Studioalbum der Band wurde vom Rolling Stone, Pitchfork Magazine und LA Weekly zu einem der besten Metal-Alben des Jahres 2015 gekürt. In der Tat wirkt Gold & Grey wie ein melodisches Puzzle, in dem typische Melodien und Harmonien der Band zwar aufgegriffen, aber komplett umgestaltet und neu interpretiert wurden. Die Texte sind voller klanglicher Überraschungen, in den scheinbar eingängigsten Songs versteckt sich unorthodoxer Prog. Aus wirbelndem Chaos und dichten Klangschichten entstehen neue Melodien. Seine ganz eigene Farbe erhält das Album durch Streicher, Glockenspiel, Röhrenglocken, Klavier, Synthesizer und sogar einer Außenaufnahme, bei der ein Transformator in die Luft gejagt wurde.

Zum ersten Mal überhaupt ist bei Baroness die Rhythmussektion im Mittelpunkt: das treibende Schlagzeug von Sebastian Thomson (Trans Am, Publicist) und der Jazz-Bass von Nick Jost. In rhythmischer Komplexität bewegt sich die Band zwischen Math-, Post- und Krautrock und verschiedensten Spielereien elektronischer Musik. Darüber hinaus hat sich die Band mit Gitarristin Gina Gleason eine begnadete Gitarristin an Bord geholt, die bereits mit dem Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, den Smashing Pumpkins und Carlos Santana zusammengearbeitet hat. Ihre Stimme harmoniert perfekt mit der von Baizley und Jost und bringt eine völlig neue Klangfarbe in den Sound der Band ein.

Wie schon ihr letztes Erfolgsalbum Purple nahmen Baroness ihr neues Album mit dem Grammy-ausgezeichneten Produzenten Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, MGMT, Mercury Rev) in dessen Tarbox Studios auf.

"Nach "Purple" kehren sie dieses Mal zu einem zweifarbigen Titel zurück, "Gold & Grey" enthält 17(!) Tracks, mit dem Ziel, so Gründer, Gitarrist und Sänger John Baizley "immer anspruchsvollere, ehrlichere und fesselndere Musik zu schreiben und einen einzigartigeren und anspruchsvolleren Sound zu entwickeln. Wir sind unglaublich in die Tiefe gegangen und haben eine Platte aufgenommen, von der ich überzeugt bin, dass wir sie nie wieder replizieren können. Sebastian, Nick und Gina haben mich dazu gedrängt, ein besserer Songwriter, Musiker und Sänger zu werden!" Diese Veröffentlichung soll einige "Firsts" für die Band enthalten, außerdem ist es das erste Album mit der Gitarristin Gina Gleason, die 2017 eingestiegen ist." (Abraxan Hymns)

Baroness:
John Baizley, Gitarre, Gesang
Gina Gleason, Gitarre, Gesang
Sebastian Thomson, Schlagzeug
Nick Jost, Bass, Keyboard

Baroness
Grammy-nominated exploratory rock band Baroness return with their most ambitious work to date, fifth album Gold & Grey. Set for release on the band’s own Abraxan Hymns, Gold & Grey spills triumphantly past genre barriers, their anthemic alt-metal hooks ricocheting between the circuitous twists of prog and jazz, the moody swirls of space-rock and noise, and the hypnotic pulses of trip-hop and 20th Century minimalism.

“This is the most clear representation of the artistic vision I have for the band that we’ve ever done,” says Baroness vocalist, guitarist and founder John Baizley. “I’m surprised that we got as far with it as we did.”

Baizley sees the diverse, adventurous album as a “lateral step” from the streamlined, immediate guitar-rock of the band’s last release, Purple, championed by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and L.A. Weekly as one of the best metal albums of 2015. Gold & Grey works like a melodic puzzle, melodies and harmonic ideas borrowed, repurposed and reinterpreted across three sides of vinyl. Lyrics are full of sonic Easter eggs; unorthodox prog is hidden inside the most accessible songs; tunes emerge from swirling chaos and dense layers of sound. The album is given color by strings, glockenspiel, tubular bells, piano, synthesizers and even field recordings of the chaos after a transformer blew up outside of the recording studio.

“The term I kept using was that I wanted to create something that was more kaleidoscopic than our former records,” says Baizley, who embraced the wide lens and limitless journeying of artists like Pink Floyd, Neurosis, Massive Attack and Scott Walker. “We were trying to say something new with our instruments, with our sound intact, with the spirit of the band intact, but not applying the typical conventions when possible.”

For the first time ever, there’s a spotlight on Baroness’ powerhouse rhythm section – driving-and-spilling drummer Sebastian Thomson (Trans Am, Publicist) and jazz-honed bassist Nick Jost. Bustling with rhythmic complexity, the band occasionally swerves into highways of math rock, post-rock, krautrock and various strains of electronic music. In addition, the band has absorbed Gina Gleason, a gifted guitarist whose résumé includes playing with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas and jamming with both Smashing Pumpkins and Carlos Santana. Gleason’s voice harmonizes with Baizley and Jost, bringing new tone to the band.

“It’s great for me to have such a full-bodied trust in the other musicians in the band because they play at such a high level,” says Baizley. “I never, ever in a million years thought I’d play with musicians of that caliber and now I’m surrounded by them.”

Like Purple, the band recorded with prismatic, Grammy-winning producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, MGMT, Mercury Rev) at his Tarbox Studios. “There were so many split second decisions and just weird ideas that got used,” says Baizley. “I credit Dave for a lot of this because he was never one to say ‘No, that’s insane.’ It was like almost the more out there the idea, the more likely he was to encourage it to be developed and grown.”

“We went outside, in front of Dave’s studio, on one of his off days, we miked up a wooden post and hammered a nail into it,” says Baizley. “There’s so much hidden in there. There’s also some audio samples of some of my friends. I literally did the Pink Floyd thing. I set up a little booth in my basement. I said, go down there, you got five minutes, tell me the toughest thing you want to tell me. And boy, it was tough to listen to. I pulled those quotes, effected them and they popped into one of the tracks.”

Lyrically, Gold & Grey plumbs similar depths of emotion. On previous albums, Baizley has sung boldly and openly about his mental health and the recovery process from the traumatic bus accident the band and their crew suffered in 2012.

“Where Purple was me lyrically trying to work out how to adjust to a new normal, I think Gold & Grey is a more grown-up and more subtle collection of words that reflect how I am trying to deal with the longer term effects of having experienced so many terrible things,” says Baizley. “There’s a mental component. There’s a physical component. I choose to use the band as a place where I can take all of this stress, pain, anxiety, all these realities, and make them something good.”

Nearly 15 years since releasing their first EP, Baroness are finding a way forward by reveling in chaos.

“We’d listen to playback and there was a general sense of confusion,” says Baizley of the Gold & Grey sessions. I couldn’t figure out how Gina was making that sound. I didn’t understand how the rhythm that Nick and Sebastian were playing worked with what I was doing – but it did. It was a really exciting to feel like we were maybe on the edge of just falling apart. We didn’t want to know what was going on. We wanted to be always a little bit surprised by ourselves.”

This album contains no booklet.