This band doesn’t need any more fucking press, but I’d be pretty negligent if I didn’t say something about this. On their Myspace, the leviathan Baroness have put two new tracks from their upcoming Blue Record. For their sake, it needs to be said that Red Album, while an excellent album, was not a good album name. Blue Record is worse. Nobody was going to get mad if they were lazy and just called it Blue Album.

But as long as it rocks, no problem. The tracks they put up — the intro “Bullhead’s Psalm” and “The Sweetest Curse” — are promising, if the production’s a little thin. It needs to have the force of First and Second. However, “The Sweetest Curse” sounds good, so Blue Record won’t be worse than a decent album. They seem to be treading the Atlanta sludge line between Kylesa, still more “roots sludge” than their contemporaries, and Mastodon, who have pretty much given up the ghost of rawness in favor of triumphant choruses and singing.

With Red Album, I was convinced that Baroness would blow the fuck up, but Mastodon’s Crack the Skye took their limelight. Blue Record’s gonna come out with no contenders. I’m hoping it breaks some jaws and ruins neckbones.

P.S.: Pete Adams from Valkyrie’s in Baroness now, a fact that I always make a note of.