Blue Record, the second LP from Savannah, Ga., hero-metal quartet Baroness, feels like it spins for either 30 or 90 minutes, but never the 44 minutes the tracklist advertises. Full of stops and starts, dynamic swells and swan dives, razor-sharp guitar leads, and dense full-band bludgeons, these 12 tracks swell with parts and counterparts, condensing epics into tightly arranged, executed, and edited two-minute stretches. Within most any given track, Baroness twist between feelings of triumph and trouble, elation and depletion, playing all with unequal parts grace and grit. When those extremes and the sonic care that goes into creating them win over, the Blue Record feels like a marathon where everyone wins. That description, however, runs the risk of making Baroness' triumphant follow-up to 2007's Red Album seem like a laborious listen. It's not: Via expert pacing and meticulous sequencing, those peaks and valleys arise precisely where they should, creating an experience that feels more like a sunny ride in a sports car than anything resembling hard work.
No, Baroness, along with producer and mixer John Congleton, have done all of the heavy lifting for you. Congleton-- more familiar to the indie rock world than the metal set thanks to his work with bands like Black Mountain, Explosions in the Sky, and, more recently, St. Vincent on the texturally astounding Actor-- coaxes more sound out of this four-piece than they've ever allowed. Still using only bass, drums, guitars, John Baizley's full-throated roar, and a touch of piano, Baroness and Congleton render a surprisingly rich palette of sound that's well-suited for atmospheric lulls and electrified roars. Guitarist Pete Adams, new to the band after the departure of Brian Blickle late last year, flanks Baizley now. They make quite the sympathetic pair, lifting from the mid-level, mid-tempo chug that shapes the band's core into the sort of high-flying, skydiving riffs that decorate it effortlessly.
But Baroness are more than the sum of their guitar glories. Drummer Allen Blickle tweaks time habitually. On "A Horse Called Golgotha", he crams stacks of beats into tiny fills, adding exclamation marks to a tune that doesn't even need them. And on "The Gnashing", he steadily builds from a simple, bar-band plod into the sort of triumphant rumble that sends grown men into mosh pits. Congleton treats all of the pieces like interconnected games of seesaw, constantly cloaking one in the mix to highlight another, keeping it all in motion. For this, "Jake Leg" becomes more than the album's bruiser. In the verses, Congleton pulls back the marching drums back to push Baizley's bark to the fore. In the breaks, he pushes everything together, creating a mess of guitars and drums that rolls like a boulder into the next line. Think Torche with greater control and finesse. That is, the song's anthemic quality doesn't get in the way of its million moving parts. One just augments the other.
You're only going to notice details like that when you listen, rewind, and listen again. Blue Record is simply much too fun and kinetic to analyze in real time. With Baroness, one part is always changing while another prepares to do the same, everything working in concert to pull the listener along, too. These songs are invitations that are easy to accept. You'll be excused while digging for your lighter and singing along during "Steel That Sleeps the Eye", fingerpicking an air guitar during the serpentine intro to "O'Er Hell and Hide" or pumping a fist and shouting, "Flesh is weak!" and "My lip needs a meal," during the relentless "Jake Leg". Even "Ogeechee Hymnal", a slow-burning instrumental ostensibly intended as the mid-album respite, magnetizes with its gorgeous sheets of guitar and bass. When it bleeds into "A Horse Called Golgotha", any inkling you might've had to think gets crushed by sheer power. It feels as good as Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", but it's as accomplished as the best of a masturbatory metal dude like Marc Rizzo.
Baroness makes this all seam so seamless, casual, and spirited, as if four Southern badasses simply walked into a room one afternoon and ripped through this album in a jam. Every song bleeds into the other, and its flow is impeccable. But the whole production-- the peerless sound, the acoustic interludes, the interwoven lyrics-- betray careful, deliberate construction. Still, Blue Record never feels overthought or overworked. These guys are having too much fun for that. Complex enough to reward repetitive listening and compact enough to encourage it, Blue Record is one of the year's most generous hours. Or half-hours. Or, hell, however long the thing is.
