Baroness Red Album CD

Baroness: John Dyer Baizley (vocals, guitars); Brian Blickle (guitars); Summer Welch (bass guitar); Allen Blickle (drums).
Additional personnel: Tony Roebuck (trumpet).
Relapse Records' Baroness sound like a band that's been together much longer than their four years. Their debut full-length, THE RED ALBUM, displays a veteran band's sense of adventure and sophistication while retaining a young band's power and energy. Similar in spirit to (fellow Georgians) Mastodon, Baroness concentrates on giving a song room to breathe. They're not afraid to jam, but never lose focus, building complicated, twisting guitar acreage that's equal parts Metallica and Television, with a strong balance of tension and release that demands your attention. Heavy as a boulder or light as meringue, Baroness shows an advanced mastery of dynamics that will please many a cerebral headbanger.
There isn't exactly a plethora of metal bands in the early 21st century that are eager to mix indie rock sounds into their noise, which makes the Savannah, GA-based quartet Baroness stand out from the overcrowded metallic pack. On their first-ever full-length release (and first for the Relapse label), 2007's The Red Album, the riffs are quite reminiscent of guitar-driven, post-hardcore bands out of the mid-'90s (a style which would later serve as the basis for emo bands several years later), while singer/guitarist John Baizley only knows one way to vocalize: holler, holler, holler. Think a more metallic Fugazi or Sunny Day Real Estate, and you're not far off from the brand of rock & roll that Baroness specializes in, as evidenced by such standouts as "The Birthing" and "Wanderlust." The Red Album shows that Baroness is one of a select number of acts that manage to be both mathematical and melodic at the same time. ~ Greg PratoSpin (p.114) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Like all good prog-inspired bands, they wedge in an acoustic interlude here and there just for kicks, but quickly return to riffs that knot up tightly..."
Alternative Press (p.166) - 4.5 stars out of 5 -- "[A] thrilling piece of midnight arson in their own proverbial garden of good and evil, an expert exhibition of the guitar-riff-as-swarm..."
Kerrang (Magazine) (p.47) - "This is truly ambitious, with cloudbursting post-metal vistas leading into hypnotically heavy riffage..."
Kerrang (Magazine) (p.71) - Ranked #15 in Kerrang's "The Top 20 Albums Of 2007" -- "[A] truly organic record..."