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

Baroness is one of the few contemporary bands to have been able to impose over time a visual as well as a sound identity, which necessarily owes much to John Baizley, founder, singer and graphic designer whose superb artworks are so recognizable.

Baroness is therefore a colourful universe with a very marked style, which gravitates somewhere between emotional and progressive sludge but it is also a concept, each album answering the name of a colour. After red, blue, yellow and green, the Americans chose purple to baptize their fourth offering, which almost never saw the light of day, following the serious accident of which its authors were the victims in 2012 with their tour-bus. Did they draw from this ordeal a will, an energy that was beginning to fade, witness this "Yellow & Green" (too much) contrasted and dragging on? Possible, but let's leave out this kind of analysis, easy and futile.

Nevertheless, the quartet delivers with "Purple" the opus we were all waiting for after a referential "Blue Record". However, don't believe that Baroness has decided to revive the filthy sound of his early days, on the contrary, he remains faithful to the signature that made his success, of a deceptive simplicity, capable of stirring up a wide audience. However, it remains true that his music is adorned with the sharp nervousness that the previous record was a little stingy with.

The result is a compact ensemble, within which is always nestled this singular ambivalence nourished by these overpowering aspects and this fragile voice tinged with bitterness. Melodic and tense like a ship's jib, the inaugural "Morningstar" synthesizes this nuanced writing with strength and elegance. Relatively short, the album is all along crossed by these tumults which prevent him from drowning.

But there are always those fierce riffs or solos that Brian May of Queen would not deny, that save titles such as "Try To Disappear", "Chlorine & Wine" and especially "If I Have To Wake Up (Would You Stop The Rain)", thereby underlining the importance of guitarist Peter Adams. Extremely dynamic, "Purple" opens the floodgates of a melancholy that poisons most of the tracks, like "The Iron Bell" or "Kerosene", tainted with discreet electro scents while twisted lines like Mastodon thread their way through the middle.

Baroness signs a great record that should reconcile him with his fans that "Yellow & Green" had somewhat disappointed. - Official website

BARONESS

PURPLE

AUTRE LABEL

ALTERNATIVE ROCK