Download Central: The band of many colours

Baroness, as I said, are a heavy metal band – some music critics affix prefixes such as ‘stoner’, ‘alternative’ or ‘sludge’ to their genre but the fact is that they are a heavy metal band.

Beginning with their first studio effort in 2007, Red Album, every LP by Baroness, the heavy metal band from Savannah in the US state of Georgia, is titled with the name of a colour. Their second album was called Blue Record; then came 2012’s Yellow & Green (it was a double album); and then, last month they released their latest, Purple. The colour thing for their album titles seems apt.

Baroness (left, with frontman and guitarist John Baizley in the centre) performs in Chicago in 2012. (Corbis)

Baroness, as I said, are a heavy metal band – some music critics affix prefixes such as ‘stoner’, ‘alternative’ or ‘sludge’ to their genre but the fact is that they are a heavy metal band. And heavy metal bands are? Well, they are loud, deep sounding, aggressive, distortion-loving purveyors of music that is not necessarily associated with colour other than different shades of black. Dark and brooding is how the music played by most heavy metal bands can seem. But Baroness are different. Their music, even when it has all the required attributes of metal – loudness; heavy beats; and fierceness – is also vibrant and colourful.

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