Give Up The Roast is a column that collides delicious caffeine with wild thrashing a la a bi-monthly coffee and punk album pairing—the perfect combination for perking you up during that midday slump. Here, columnist Shannon Shreibak investigates all of the notes, from fruit rinds and spices to perfect fifths smothered in grinding distortion. So come on all you coffee shop novelists, DIY freaks, and connoisseurs of fine taste—keep your mind here in the GUTR and catch a buzz with us.
Tugging on heartstrings all the while damning the demons gnawing at their heels, southern sludge lords Baroness have crafted a young legacy of psych-infused alterna-metal that’s as smart as it is callous. On the coattails of the release of their fourth LP “Purple,” I’m diving deep down in the sludgy rabbit hole of the Georgians’ ironclad catalog, zeroing in on “Yellow & Green.” Luckily, I’m not alone. I’ve found the perfect cup of coffee to keep me company throughout the double album’s 18 scorching tracks: Café du Monde. And, yes, I’ll shirk tradition and take it black, because I’m feeling a little unhinged these days.
BEHIND THE CURTAIN (BACKGROUND)
Following an agonizing bus crash that led to the departure of two of its members in 2012, Savannah, Georgia, quartet Baroness seized a few moments of silence to let wounds heal and stories stew. Fans were left with the stirring sounds of “Yellow & Green,” a double album unleashed in the high heat of the year’s summer. Enlisting John Congleton’s talents behind the board once again (following the creative success of the “Blue Record), “Yellow & Green” skims across the shades of grey that whitewash adulthood. Oscillating between hard and soft, taciturn and garrulous, John Baizley & Co. dig deep into thematic elements and pop-rock modes on their third LP.
BRASS TACKS (THE COFFEE)
When broaching a prog-metal band as stalwart as Baroness, one must quest for a coffee just as staunch. New Orleans’ Café du Monde was the only coffee that could make the cut. If there is anything I will ever retain from two years of skirmishing through college-level French classes, it’s that the Frenchies do coffee right. Traditionally served au lait to cut through unrelenting intensity of its trademark chicory shards, du Monde is a dead honest cup o’ joe that will make any espresso quiver.
Originally incorporated into roasts during the Civil War to add boldness to then-scarce coffee, Café du Monde serves up a sip heavy on chocolatey notes and a bitter edginess. Boasting overwhelming earthiness just as spine-curdling as any Baroness cut, du Monde churns out the perfect brew for the hardest tweaking coffee addicts (and metal heads).
WHITE NOISE (THE MUSIC)
On the preceding “Red Album” and “Blue Record,” Baroness leaned on psychedelic tangents and virtuoso panache. With “Yellow & Green” the band is more confident in their own musicianship and storytelling, which manifests in a newfound boldness and artistic concept. Not only is “Yellow & Green” a venture in concept, but it’s also an experimentation of space. With each record residing in two distinct sonic and thematic worlds – “Yellow” stewing in a cacophony of paranoia and pain, “Green” buoying up pastoral melodies – “Yellow & Green” serves as the cornerstone of Baroness’s extolled catalog.
The albums opens with the calm of the “Yellow Theme,” but the arrival of chaos is imminent. Barreling through needle tongued thrash ballad “Take My Bones Away” and chaotic clanks of “Little Things,” the album quickly gains momentum. On tracks like “Board Up The House,” Baroness is more comfortable wading in pockets of vacuous studio air. The record as a whole – “Yellow” especially” – is Baroness’s most deliberate piece of work yet, skirting any double-album tropes that many bands of lesser talent and aptitude would fall prey to.
Where Baroness previously injected brawny audio hacks, ham-fisted volumes and bottom-heavy anthems “Yellow & Green” swaps for nuance and conceptual weight. “Eula,” a fan favorite (and my foray into Baroness) is the most stunning example of this newfound aesthetic. With bait-and-switch tempos and draw-blood lyricism (“this apple makes me sick / says this pig upon the stick / it’s my own blood”), “Eula” encapsulates the band’s sonic palette in some of the most blissful minutes in prig-metal.
The album grinds through lower gears with “Green,” opting for slow rolling tempos and gut-grating guitars. Unfurling with the “Green Theme,” Baroness gradually ups the ante with steady crescendos and scaly composition. The album hits a peak with “The Line Between,” a generous heap of jagged pop melodies and prodding guitar riffs. Even with Baroness’s newfound air of restraint, the tracks still gnaw with rasping honesty.
“Yellow & Green” is an album that has become impossibly transcendent in relation to its parent band. Almost a foreshadowing of the calamity quickly approaching, the album’s point-blank skirmishes with grief, uncertainty and regret still glow with triumph.
Column by Shannon Shreibak. Go forth and be loud with her on Twitter @ShannonShreibak.
