Gold & Grey

Baroness currently find themselves in a place of great maturity, exhibiting superb musicianship. It’s fitting for Gold & Grey to be the conclusion of the band’s color-themed albums. The array of instrumentation and emotion throughout not only make Gold & Grey a joy to listen to, but also an achievement of which Baroness can truly be proud.

To say this album is epic would be an understatement; it’s a work of art in the truest sense.

This is a world-class band seemingly ending a chapter, clearing the board and resetting the clocks. This is the sound of a world-class artist, with his world-class band, at once unifying and annihilating his own history, putting a concept on a fire and letting us hear it burn.

With Gold & Grey, Baizley and his cohorts have produced a monumental work of art that’s as dark and forbidding as it is bright and triumphant. It perfectly balances light and dark, revels in the creative possibilities of music-making, whilst plumbing emotional depths that might have you worrying a little for Baizley’s state of mind.

Baizley shines like never before, Thomson and Jost continue to excel as a rhythmic duo, and newcomer Gleason infuses the set with rewarding and required vocal and instrumental supplemental shades. Together, their faultless unified elegance harvests cherished templates and innovative techniques in equal measure. As a result, just about every listener—no matter their history or prior opinions—will deem Gold & Grey Baroness' masterpiece.

Baroness have outdone themselves with Gold & Grey. Armed with a fresh sound and well-honed talent, they are finally ready to be recognized as one of the most important bands in modern rock music.

Stellar fifth album is a determined attempt to push back the genre's long-established boundaries, folding in everything from glitchy electronica and lysergic Americana to gnarled pop into their full-frontal noise. [Aug 2019, p.108]

Baroness convince their disparate influences to gel beautifully without lapsing into the homogeneity (or self-indulgent drudgery) that remains a common defect of long, proggy albums. The second half is noticeably quieter and spookier than the more bombastic first half, easing down gently into more melodic and even acoustic fare.

Thanks to maturity, Fridmann's mix, and uncanny sequencing, every song fits seamlessly inside each proceeding one, delivering a mercurial yet satisfying whole that makes Gold & Grey the band's finest outing to date, if not their masterpiece.

Their travails have produced an epic, ambitious collection that is beautifully beatific, purifying and uplifting.

An epic beast. playing to their strengths while also sprawling in new directions. [Jul 2019, p.89]

While their more reflective and even pop-oriented moments keep the double album catchy and worth revisiting, this new avenue also affords a clearer view of Baroness' Achilles' heels, which are a propensity for predictable lyrics and an occasional Foo Fighter sappiness. But those flaws aren't terminal, and for the most part, Baroness takes us on a thunderous langskip ride through angry seas that is as addictive and thrilling as their past output.