Southern metalheads Baroness have finally released their long awaited Blue Record.  I believe the group will be going for some sort of color theme for their releases if the last one was called The Red Album. 

Lots of the songs on this latest release seem to possess stark contrasts to their debut.  Gone are the long and sprawling epics.  They are now replaced by shorter songs with tighter arrangements.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing for the band, especially if they have to mix things up live.  These shorter songs could serve as punctuations for the longer pieces that they've historically done if you'd also check their split single and the two EPs they've released thus far.  They'll be on tour for the rest of the fall and winter.  Too bad there aren't any Seattle dates thus far.

The live track is part of the second CD on the Blue Record.  You'll hear the band introduce Isak with a short tribute to Jimi Hendrix's Machine Gun.  They also played the song that way when I saw them last summer.

Isak (live) - Baroness


Baroness at the King Cat Theater, summer 2009