BARONESS: Stone (ALTERNATIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

In the particularly crowded sludge metal field, few bands are still evolving, working on their art, renovating a genre with unchanging invariants. But if there's one band that refuses to get bogged down in a formula, or to follow an (overly) waymarked path, it's Baroness, whose every new album is an opportunity to respond to the previous one with boldness and intelligence.

Long-established, the Americans' signature style remains instantly recognizable, owing everything (or almost everything) to John Baizley, particularly for his powerfully emotional vocals and the superb, uniquely styled illustrations that adorn their records. Baroness is a universe, both visual and sonic, a coherent and sensitive whole that belongs to him alone, and which he takes pleasure in kneading and shaping, a material in constant motion, never standing still. "Stone" is no exception to the rule.

Its title already stands in stark contrast to those of his predecessors, all of which bore the name of a color. Does this herald a new theme that its successors will follow? History will tell. What is certain, however, is that history will remember this sixth offering as one of the richest produced by the Savannah quartet, despite its rather squat format. The fact that "Stone" doesn't display the same progressive or even experimental leanings as "Gold & Grey" doesn't mean that its creators have renounced a certain complexity or sophistication.

Yet it's the heaviest, sharpest compositions, which do justice to the album's name, that first grab attention. Such is the case with 'Beneath The Rose' and 'Choir', which follow on from each other in a powerful, evolving Mastodon-style register (for the former), more bizarre and deranged (for the latter). This is also the case with 'Anodyne', a direct protrusion with heavy seams. However, the numerous plunges into their intimacy end up extracting all their nuances from multi-faceted compositions, deceptively immediate but truly abundant. The pulsating "Last Word", shaken by a torrent of guitars, "Magnolia", all in progression and blending delicacy and reinforced concrete riffs, the hypnotic "Shine" or "Under The Wheel", slow rise towards a steel storm, translate this ambivalence that infuses the whole album.

"Stone" proves, in the most intense way, that Baroness remain not only a band in a class of their own, but also far superior to their competitors in a sludge metal genre whose name increasingly ill-defines their heavy yet melodic, limpid yet sinuous art. In two words: unique and precious. - Official website

BARONESS

STONE

AUTOPRODUCTION

ALTERNATIVE ROCK