Not-So-Hidden Symbolism On The New Baroness Album Cover

So the Blue Record came out today. I got my pre-order package about a week ago, God bless ya Relapse Mailorder. I mean, I totally downloaded the whole thing like a month ago, but I was amped to see the album art blown up to epic proportions on my new t-shirt. As impressive as it already looked on screen, JPEGs just can’t do justice to John Baizley’s art. It’s every bit as beautiful in a proper size as I’d expected. I had missed a few details in a compressed format, not the least of which was this phallic surprise:

Call me immature, but it looks like there’s a big eggy dick on the cover of the Blue Record. I know John Baizley’s lady was pregnant during the conception (hah!) of the album, so that explains the big-bellied woman. The yolky cock is aimed right at her woowoo, so it might represent fertility or something like that.

The Sweetest Curse

Some deep meaning has to be in there somewhere, as it always is with Baroness’ music and imagery (or at least that’s what I assume, because I have no fucking idea what the lyrics are about). The Blue Record, like the Red Album, is simply wonderful, up on some advanced artistic level that no critics or copycat bands have quite been able to put their greasy fingers on. These Virginians are masters at writing complete albums; the music is like a narrative. Themes and motifs poke in and out throughout. The pacing is beautiful. Diverse influences make this seem like a manifesto of everything that has been right with rock, metal, and Americana music in the last several decades. The best part is that even several dozen listens into the Blue Record, it still manages to surprise me like it’s one of the first times I heard it, just like it was when I looked down and saw the eggy penis on my chest.

~ Liam

Feed Us Fetus

Last night my girlfriend came home to find me by myself, half-drunk and belching along to the new Dying Fetus record (I do John Gallagher’s parts). I kept going after I realized she was there. Like I’ve heard from her and countless other friends before, she said “I just can’t take it seriously when they sing like that.”

DYING FETUS – “Shepherd’s Commandment”

I wondered to myself, assuming that Fetus wasn’t one of my favorite bands since, like, sophomore year of high school, if Descend into Depravity was my first time hearing them, would I take them seriously?

Their vocals are certainly absurd; I think that as much as I did the first time I Limewired “Kill Your Mother Rape Your Dog,” and I love ‘em. But the riffs, maaaaan, the riffs. You can’t deny the almighty Fetus groove riff. I’ll have to answer with a resounding “Tits yes!”

At its core, this is a Dying Fetus record through and through, with the same groovy metal-breakdown riffs and knee-jerk tempo changes arranged in roughly the same (enjoyable and dynamic, if not predictable) pattern that they’ve used in just about song since Purification Through Violence.

Brrrrrkrrrrdrrrruuuuah!!!

But Gallagher managed to pull some new scales and sonic tricks out of his faded longsleeve that pump some fresh air into the formula. The Nile-esque guitar break around 1:29 of “Shepherd’s Commandment” comes to mind. The outstanding production is also a welcome change: crisp, punchy, clear, and for the first time in Fetus’ history, the drums don’t sound like they were recorded in the studio broom closet.

Trey Williams is a fucking beast, simply put, and is the only Fetus drummer since Trend Metal Talley that makes his bandmates sound like they’re struggling to keep up. He pushes the beat hard, and it lends an urgency to the record that brings the songs to life. Just as importantly, he plays the head-bobbing, almost hip-hoppish syncopated breakdowns with a nice touch too.

Descend into Depravity is far and away the best Fetus album since Destroy the Opposition. They’ll never achieve the same game-changing brutality they pumped out during the Netherton-Talley era, but after two albums trying to rehash DTO, I think Gallagher and Co. are at peace with that and have moved on. They should be pretty psyched about the results here.

The dude on the cover still totally looks like John Cena.

Update: DiD sold 2,714 copies last week, enough to chart at 166 in the Billboard 200. Bona fide Death Metal Royalty. They’re clearly a huge influence on the deathcore bands, whose oversize-baseball-cap-wearing fans have likely purchased at least 1,000 of those copies. Righteous.

~ Liam