By far, the album I’m most excited for this year is Baroness’ Purple. I’m of the camp that Yellow & Green, although not perfect and a bit meandering, was the band’s most exciting set of experiments to date. And from the sounds of John Baizley’s press release announcing the record, they’ve honed in on the elements that made up Yellow & Green and focused on making a more complete, fine-tuned follow up:
After releasing a lengthy and investigative record like Yellow & Green we all felt that we needed to make something much more direct and immediate. We wanted to write with our normal focus on artistry, balanced against an increased level of energy and focus. It was important for us to write our new songs with the type of enthusiasm and expressiveness that could act as a counterpoint to the album’s dark themes. As a result, the music came out in an intense, heavy and sonically captivating in a new way, which was important, loathe, as we are to fall into any kind of complacency pitfall or formulaic songwriting routine. Purple is the most fully realized representation of our intention as a band; considering the amount of physical and mental energy spent writing it, we have accomplished something which would have seemed impossible to us a couple of years ago.
Which is exactly what you get in new track “Chlorine & Wine,” a song that feels like its combing the memories of their entire discography to date. The band have just dropped a music video for the track, which is actually more like a souped-up playthrough video of them in the studio. Which is sick!
Check out the clip below. Pre-orders for the album are live here, on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play.
