Gallantly Streaming: Baroness Goes More Boom Less Doom, JEFF The Brotherhood Wake Up Hung Over In 1996

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT: May contain Album Of The Year.

Stream Yellow & Green in all its glory here (courtesy NPR)


Talk about extreme makeovers.  Baroness' first EP in 2004 introduced the world to a noise-obsessed crew of doom-metal avant gardes, but listening to the stunning Yellow & Green, you'd never mistake them for the same guys.  Indeed, Baroness have made practically made melodic growth their Modus operandi since making the earth quake with their mammoth riffs (2007's Red Album).   And on Yellow & Green, the music has grown so lofty in its craft and execution that they've become even more potent than when they were barking out the Mastodon-like anthems that got them noticed in the metal community.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself; I haven't given this album enough time to pass verdict.  Which is why I'm going to stop myself before I write a 5000-word thesis and give this thing a few more spins.

Yellow & Green is out July 17 via Relapse.

Stream Hypnotic Nights here, once again thanks to NPR.

No matter how history treats JEFF The Brotherhood's major label debut, for me it'll always be the other album that came out on the same day as Yellow & Green.  Nonetheless, it's a fun listen.  Bringing to mind notions of what Dave Wyndorf might sound like on a peyote trip with Weezer circa 1996, Hypnotic Nights trudges along through a swamp of fuzz.  Clutching a lightning bolt in one hand and a beer in the other, it's the kind of party rock that doesn't make you cringe.  That said, it's a little to lighthearted to truly hypnotize, although album closer Changes does sort of throw you out of a speeding car and into another galaxy.

Hypnotic Nights comes out July 17 on Warner Bros.