Baroness, bekend van de prachtige albumhoezen, verrast na vier jaar met een nieuwe single. Last Word, de tweede track op het nieuwe ‘Stone’, ligt met emotionele zangpartijen, proggy invloeden en een snedige gitaarsolo in lijn met de bekende ‘colored records’.
Opmerkelijk is dat zowel het album als deze videoclip volledig zelf door de band werden geproduced. Of dat ook invloed heeft op het geluid? Beslis daar vooral zelf over.
Stone verschijnt op 15 september 2023 via Abraxan Hymns.
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“An important through line inBaronessis we don't like to repeat ourselves,"John Baizley explains."It's all about the willingness to take risks. When I was younger, the whole point of music was to be different, not to do the same thing, and not to listen to parents or play by the rules. That's kind of goofy, but in practice, it works. It's really sort of terrifying to be at the sixth record in your career and think that you'll have to keep up with your history rather than continually invent. So, we doubled down on continuously inventing to see where it takes us. I think this record is a good reflection of that. STONE is a lot more alive, more direct.”
That voluntary evolution brought the now Philadelphia-meets-Brooklyn based band to the border town of Barryville, N.Y. Electing to self-produce STONE, Baroness spent a month shrouded amidst the pines, holed up in a vacation rental that became an impromptu recording space replete with big, vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors, and brick/glass walls. While they wrote STONE, Baizley recorded and pre-mixed it in real time, giving each song on STONE its own sonic treatment. After the group finished tracking drums, guitars, and bass, they took everything back to Baizley’s basement studio to record vocals before handing the album off to mix master Joe Barresi (Kyuss, Tool) and mastering guru Bob Ludwig (Led Zeppelin, Nirvana).
The band offer a preview of the stirring new album with the release of“Last Word,”and its accompanying Nick Jost-directed video. “I had been developing this process for video and animation, and this being our first self-produced album, we thought ‘why not extend that ethos to the video, too?’”explains theBaronessbass player.“It was really nerve racking to direct and create my first music video, but having a lifetime of nightmares and a love for strange animation turned out to be very useful.”
