Baroness ‘Stone’ Review: stalwart metallers get expansive and reflective on latest release recorded during the pandemic.
Baroness return with Stone (Sept 15, Abraxan Hymns), their first album since 2019’s Gold and Grey, and the group’s first effort without a color in the album title.
Recorded at the height of the pandemic, the album sees frontman/primary songwriter and guitarist John Baizley, guitarist Gina Gleason, bassist Nick Jost and drummer Sebastian Thomson hunkering down for one of their most immediate and dynamic albums to date.
It’s also a true collaborative effort: each member is credited for songwriting and production contributions, a task that fell largely on Baizley’s shoulders in the past.
And it’s a study in contrasts, vacillating between somber acoustic numbers like the Pink Floyd psych of opening track Embers to the pummeling Last Word, which combines a chugging low-tuned stoner riff with thrash accents and harrowed vocals.
There’s also a prog influence leant to the proceedings as well: Beneath The Rose has the tendril-riffing one would expect from Mastodon, with Baizley’s Johnny Cash-style spoken word rant (“this is not the hill that we die on”) buttressed by gnarled dual guitar leads and rapid tempo changes creating a primal sense of urgency.
Choir continues the spoken word delivery amid a staccato riff, heavy snare and alien six-string textures, Baizley’s echoed vocals and cryptic lyrics (“She haunts my room at night/That I might use my eyelids as a shield against her light”) taking on a spectral quality.
Anodyne wins the award for the heaviest track of the album, sounding like the unholy union of Metallica and QOTSA, but still sounding uniquely Baroness with its off-kilter charm and sonorous quality.
There is a nice vocal interplay between Baizley and Gleason throughout the album, their spine-tingling harmonies shining on the The Dirge, which evokes a country spiritual. They then hit a fever pitch on the spacey and rollicking Shine, before returning to calm on Bloom, a Nick Drake-esque number that is playful and earnest, and a fine closer to the album.
In the press release for the album, Baizley said “This record started off the loosest conceptually. It ended up feeling like it was different chapters in a short story…So, this album is sort of a reflection of my life. I’ve had some tough years, and I think I’ve found some semblance of calm now. I think I found that walking through Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. Sure, there’s death, but there’s memory, too. I found that almost peaceful.”
Stone, despite its aggressive aspects, is ultimately a peaceful album, one from which the listens can gain solace and sustenance. Showing that despite the pandemic and all the wtf-ness we’ve been through since, there is something profound about surviving and learning lessons of self-reliance along the way.
