Baroness - Blue Record (2009) Review by Matthew Grant Anson Baroness from Savannah, Georgia is a metal band that likes to keep things simple. Their three EPs are conveniently titled First, Second and Third. With the release of their latest brand of progressive sludge metal, Blue Record, their follow up to their 2007 debut Red Album, they even keep things color coded. But outside of the album titles, that is where the simplicity ends. In 2007, Baroness finally released its debut album, Red Album, to the world. Well received in almost all metal circles was considered a solid debut by a band that had been showing flashes of its talent in its trio of EPs. The album even garnered attention outside of the extreme metal world of music when it received Album of the Year honors from the magazine Revolver. But Blue Record completely, and without a doubt, tops all of this. Baroness took the best elements of Red Album and enhanced them into something more. The simple explorations of a few seemingly dissident chords slowly become riffs as the songs progress and the intensely focused songwriting is something new Baroness has brought to the table. On Red Album, the only fault that could be found was sometimes the band would become lost exploring the different types of distortions their amps and pedals could make. This left behind an album that somehow made the clashing riffs combine into a good record, but the lack of focus left room for improvement. Consider the improvement done. The