It’s the resurrection of an old riff. It’s part of a trilogy of songs. It’s awesome.
Of course you're excited about Baroness' new album. Of course you are. There's still two months until Stone comes out, which is a drag, but now that you've had time to fall in love with their opening throw from it, Last Word, the band have dropped a second track to keep you busy, the brilliant Beneath The Rose.
Explains singer/guitarist John Baizley, the song was originally intended for their last album, 2019's Gold & Grey, and forms part of a series of connected jams on the new album...
“It feels great to be releasing music again. Especially a song like Beneath The Rose, which we began writing during the Gold & Grey sessions almost six years ago," he says. "During those sessions the song never quite took off, but once we began writing Stone, one of the first things I did was pull that main guitar riff out of retirement to see if we could breathe new life into the bones of this song.
"Paired with Last Word, Beneath The Rose became a microcosmic expression of Stone, a kind of mission statement that hints at the wide musical territory we cover throughout the rest of the album. It’s also part one of a trilogy of songs that also includes Choir and The Dirge.”
Stone is the first Baroness record not to use the artists's colour wheel as its title. This is all part of moving forward, says John.
“An important through line in Baroness is we don’t like to repeat ourselves,” he explains. “It’s all about the willingness to take risks. When I was younger, the whole point of music was to be different, not to do the same thing, and not to listen to parents or play by the rules. That’s kind of goofy, but in practice, it works.
“It’s really sort of terrifying to be at the sixth record in your career and think that you'll have to keep up with your history rather than continually invent,” he continues. “So, we doubled down on continuously inventing to see where it takes us. I think this record is a good reflection of that. Stone is a lot more alive, more direct.”
“I think we were able to strip everything away on this record,” adds guitarist Gina Gleason. “We were unified in that. So, we just jumped in and did our best. That felt really good. It was a really cool, empowering, creative experience.”
Stone is released on September 15 via Abraxan Hymns.
