Band:	Baroness
Album:	Yellow & Green
Style:	Progressive rock, Stoner rock
Release date:	July 17, 2012
A review by:	Doc G.

Disc I
01. Yellow Theme
02. Take My Bones Away
03. March To The Sea
04. Little Things
05. Twinkler
06. Cocainium
07. Back Where I Belong
08. Sea Lungs
09. Eula

Disc II
01. Green Theme
02. Board Up The House
03. Mtns. (The Crown & Anchor)
04. Foolsong
05. Collapse
06. Psalms Alive
07. Stretchmarker
08. The Line Between
09. If I Forget Thee, Lowcountry

Here's a band that has picked up a notable amount of steam over the past few years; Red Album was generally received warmly, building up perfectly to the staggering amounts of praise for Blue Record. The pressure is on. How do they live up to it? By throwing us a goddamn curve-ball, is what.

Of course you all like curve-balls. Well, not all of you will like this one. Yellow has a distinctly mainstream, radio rock appeal. It seems they figured their flavour of Savannah Sludge was being taken over by similar acts like Kylesa and Black Tusk, it was time to shake things up. This result of changing things up with their cleanest, catchiest, most melodic piece to date. Some of these tracks have such an arena-rock sort of feel to them, it becomes increasingly difficult to really call this a sludge band anymore.

The kicker? Despite having an obviously intentional high level of accessibility to it, Yellow is still thoughtfully built from the ground up. The guitar work is incredibly dynamic, even if it completely lacks many of the rougher edges you have come to expect from this band.

That's the Yellow side. Green side is a totally different story. No, it's not back to actual sludge, but even further away. It's a really mellow ("The Line Between" aside), bizarre form of old school prog going on. Not quite as memorable or notable as Yellow, Green is well worth the listen if for nothing else than witnessing the contrast this band is capable of pulling off.

In the end, Yellow & Green is a toss-up. People expecting to hear Baroness revisit Red Album are going to be sorely disappointed. However, open minds may be quite impressed by this bands calculated maturation into a band built on well-structured riffs, diversity, and accessibility.