Press Release

BARONESS’ GOLD & GREY AVAILABLE NOW

“TOURNIQUET” VIDEO UNVEILED

“Gold & Grey feels like a callback to the heyday of the rock album as art object.” – NPR

“Gold & Grey is the best thing Baroness have ever done… a masterpiece.” – Stereogum

June 14, 2019 – Gold & Grey, the last album in Baroness’ canon of kaleidoscopic releases, is available today.

The band has simultaneously debuted the video for “Tourniquet”, with the Pam Strohm directed clip tying into the album artwork’s color palette.

One of rock music’s most anticipated releases of the year, the 17-track album is racking up accolade after accolade, with fans and music critics alike raving about the Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Mogwai) produced collection. Consequence of Sound awarded the album an “A”, describing Gold & Grey as “a culmination of all their passion and discipline,” while MetalSucks expanded on that idea, saying “It’s fitting that the chromatic series that started with the blazing Red Album should close with a deep self-examination like this. Spontaneously melancholy and invigorating, Gold & Grey perfectly encapsulates how Baroness excel at reaching shining peaks and descending into gloomy valleys.”

“The idea, initially, was just to do the traditional color wheel, which is six colors,” explains Baizley in a forthcoming Revolver cover story. “Orange is the final one on the wheel, so calling it Gold & Grey is our way of circumventing calling our album Orange — that’s just not a cool title, so this is as close as we get to it. I’ve listened to all five [Baroness albums] in a row, and this record feels like it’s part of that. And I don’t know that the next one won’t, but it also feels like 12 years might be long enough chasing one idea.”

Baroness make a special full band performance this evening at Brooklyn’s Rough Trade as part of a mini-tour of Northeastern U.S. record stores. The band heads to South America later this month, with North American and European tours carrying them through the end of the year.

Tour dates:

June 14 Brooklyn, NY Rough Trade

June 15 Poughkeepsie, NY Darkside Records

June 16 Boston, MA ONCE/Newbury Comics

June 19 Mexico City, Mexico MX at Lunario

June 21 Santiago, Chile Blondie

June 22 Buenos Aires, Argentina Uniclub

June 23 São Paulo, Brazil Fabrique Club

July 11 Lancaster, PA The Chameleon

July 12 Poughkeepsie, NY The Chance

July 13 Huntington, NY The Paramount

July 14 Hartford, CT Webster Theatre

July 16 Buffalo, NY Town Ballroom

July 17 Pittsburgh, PA Mr. Smalls Theatre

July 19 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall

July 20 Detroit, MI The Majestic

July 21 Indianapolis, IN Deluxe at Old National Centre

July 23 Palatine, IL Durty Nellie’s

July 24 Des Moines, IA Wooly’s

July 26 Omaha, NE The Waiting Room

July 27 Lawrence, KS The Granada

July 28 St. Louis MO The Ready Room

July 30 Nashville, TN Cannery Ballroom

July 31 Birmingham, AL Saturn

August 4 Baton Rouge, LA The Varsity Theatre

August 5 Atlanta, GA Buckhead Theatre

August 6 Tampa, FL The Orpheum

August 7 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room

August 9 Orlando, FL Plaza Live

August 10 Jacksonville, FL 1904 Music Hall

August 11 Charleston, SC The Music Farm

August 13 Charlotte, NC The Underground

August 14 Asheville, NC The Orange Peel

August 16 Richmond, VA The National

August 17 Baltimore, MD Baltimore Sound Stage

September 23 Newcastle, UK O2 Academy

September 24 Glasgow, UK O2 Academy

September 26 London, UK O2 Academy Brixton

September 28 Bristol, UK O2 Academy

September 30 Birmingham, UK O2 Academy

October 1 Manchester, UK O2 Apollo

October 3 Belfast, UK Ulster Hall

October 4 Dublin, IE Olympia Theatre

October 6 Paris, FR L’Olympia

October 7 Luxembourg, LU Rockhal

October 9 Madrid, ES La Riviera

October 10 Lisbon, PT Coliseum

October 12 Barcelona, ES Razzmatazz

October 14 Milan, IT Fabrique

October 29 Warsaw, PL Torwar Arena

October 31 Prague, CZ O2 Universum

November 1 Berlin, DE Mercedes-Benz Arena

November 3 Stuttgart, DE Schleyerhalle

November 5 Zurich, CH Hallenstadion

November 7 Frankfurt, DE Festhalle

November 8 Munich, DE Olympiahalle

November 10 Leipzig, DE Arena Leipzig

November 11 Hamburg, DE Barclaycard Arena

November 12 Hamburg, DE Barclaycard Arena

November 14 Cologne, DE Lanxess Arena

November 15 Cologne, DE Lanxess Arena

November 17 Vienna, AT Stadhalle

November 19 Amsterdam, NL Ziggo Dome

November 21 Antwerp, BE Lotto Arena

November 27 Helsinki, FI Hartwall Arena

November 29 Stockholm, SE Tele2 Arena

Baroness is John Baizley (vocals/guitar), Gina Gleason (guitar), Nick Jost (bass) and Sebastian Thomson (drums). Baroness received a GRAMMY® Award nomination for the song “Shock Me” (from the 2015 album, Purple) in the “Best Metal Performance” category. Purple saw worldwide praise with Pitchfork saying it features “some of the biggest, strongest songs Baroness has ever written” and Mojo proclaiming “Baroness have delivered their masterpiece.” The album received numerous year end accolades including “Shock Me” at #10 on Entertainment Weekly’s Top 40 Songs of 2015, #6 on Pitchfork’s Best Metal Albums of 2015 and #7 on Rolling Stone’s 20 Best Metal Albums of 2015. The band’s catalog of studio recordings is: Gold & Grey (2019), Purple (2015), Yellow & Green (2012), Blue Record (2009), Red Album (2007), A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk (Split LP, 2007), Second (EP, 2004) and First (EP, 2004).

Artist Bio

Grammy-nominated exploratory rock band Baroness return with their most ambitious work to date, fifth album Gold & Grey. Set for release on the band’s own Abraxan Hymns, Gold & Grey spills triumphantly past genre barriers, their anthemic alt-metal hooks ricocheting between the circuitous twists of prog and jazz, the moody swirls of space-rock and noise, and the hypnotic pulses of trip-hop and 20^th Century minimalism.

“This is the most clear representation of the artistic vision I have for the band that we’ve ever done,” says Baroness vocalist, guitarist and founder John Baizley. “I’m surprised that we got as far with it as we did.”

Baizley sees the diverse, adventurous album as a “lateral step” from the streamlined, immediate guitar-rock of the band’s last release, Purple, championed by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and L.A. Weekly as one of the best metal albums of 2015. Gold & Grey works like a melodic puzzle, melodies and harmonic ideas borrowed, repurposed and reinterpreted across three sides of vinyl. Lyrics are full of sonic Easter eggs; unorthodox prog is hidden inside the most accessible songs; tunes emerge from swirling chaos and dense layers of sound. The album is given color by strings, glockenspiel, tubular bells, piano, synthesizers and even field recordings of the chaos after a transformer blew up outside of the recording studio.

“The term I kept using was that I wanted to create something that was more kaleidoscopic than our former records,” says Baizley, who embraced the wide lens and limitless journeying of artists like Pink Floyd, Neurosis, Massive Attack and Scott Walker. “We were trying to say something new with our instruments, with our sound intact, with the spirit of the band intact, but not applying the typical conventions when possible.”

For the first time ever, there’s a spotlight on Baroness’ powerhouse rhythm section – driving-and-spilling drummer Sebastian Thomson (Trans Am, Publicist) and jazz-honed bassist Nick Jost. Bustling with rhythmic complexity, the band occasionally swerves into highways of math rock, post-rock, krautrock and various strains of electronic music. In addition, the band has absorbed Gina Gleason, a gifted guitarist whose résumé includes playing with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas and jamming with both Smashing Pumpkins and Carlos Santana. Gleason’s voice harmonizes with Baizley and Jost, bringing new tone to the band.

“It’s great for me to have such a full-bodied trust in the other musicians in the band because they play at such a high level,” says Baizley. “I never, ever in a million years thought I’d play with musicians of that caliber and now I’m surrounded by them.”

Like Purple, the band recorded with prismatic, Grammy-winning producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, MGMT, Mercury Rev) at his Tarbox Studios. “There were so many split second decisions and just weird ideas that got used,” says Baizley. “I credit Dave for a lot of this because he was never one to say ‘No, that’s insane.’ It was like almost the more out there the idea, the more likely he was to encourage it to be developed and grown.”

“We went outside, in front of Dave’s studio, on one of his off days, we miked up a wooden post and hammered a nail into it,” says Baizley. “There’s so much hidden in there. There’s also some audio samples of some of my friends. I literally did the Pink Floyd thing. I set up a little booth in my basement. I said, go down there, you got five minutes, tell me the toughest thing you want to tell me. And boy, it was tough to listen to. I pulled those quotes, effected them and they popped into one of the tracks.”

Lyrically, Gold & Grey plumbs similar depths of emotion. On previous albums, Baizley has sung boldly and openly about his mental health and the recovery process from the traumatic bus accident the band and their crew suffered in 2012.

“Where Purple was me lyrically trying to work out how to adjust to a new normal, I think Gold & Grey is a more grown-up and more subtle collection of words that reflect how I am trying to deal with the longer term effects of having experienced so many terrible things,” says Baizley. “There’s a mental component. There’s a physical component. I choose to use the band as a place where I can take all of this stress, pain, anxiety, all these realities, and make them something good.”

Nearly 15 years since releasing their first EP, Baroness are finding a way forward by reveling in chaos.

“We’d listen to playback and there was a general sense of confusion,” says Baizley of the Gold & Grey sessions. I couldn’t figure out how Gina was making that sound. I didn’t understand how the rhythm that Nick and Sebastian were playing worked with what I was doing – but it did. It was a really exciting to feel like we were maybe on the edge of just falling apart. We didn’t want to know what was going on. We wanted to be always a little bit surprised by ourselves.”