In the November issue of Decibel, there’s a feature with Baroness where drummer Allen Blickle says:

I have no idea how the hell we ended up playing this kind of music. When we first got together, all [bassist] Summer [Welch] listened to was King Diamond, [guitarist/vocalist] John [Baizley] was obsessed with old Flood records, and I was into weird shit like the Album Leaf.

The Savannah quartet’s wanderlusting full-length debut Red Album landed in my top five of 2007. From the dreamily pastoral ambient twin soloing bookmark instrumentals to the expansive sludge that falls between them, the forthcoming Blue Album finds the band more comfortably adept at meshing their disparate tastes, somehow creating an even stronger, more nuanced collection of majestic psychedelic metal. It’s impressive hearing a band already pushing themselves finding even more space for growth: The absolute beauty of some of these instrumental passages ought to be enough to bring tears to your eyes, when you’re not throwing out neck muscles listening to the crusty, mathematically insane anthems. Take a little peek via “Swollen And Halo.”

• Baroness – “Swollen And Halo”Download

Baizley handled the gorgeously apropos album art again:

Blue Record is out 10/13 via Relapse. You can stream the entire things at MySpace. Looks or a Joshua Green-directed video for “A Horse Called Golgotha” this month. Along with Converge’s Axe To Fall, this is no doubt one of the best albums of the year. Catch them live:
  
11/18 – Washington, DC @ Rock and Roll Hotel #
11/19 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church #
11/20 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom #
11/21 – Cambridge, MA @ Middle East #
11/22 – Buffalo, NY @ The Traif #
11/24 – Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick #
11/25 – Chicago, IL  @ Reggie’s Rock Club #
11/27 – Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock #
11/28 – Kansas City, MO @ The Riot Room #
11/29 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater %
11/30 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Club Vegas %
12/02 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill &
12/03 – Hollywood, CA @ Troubadour &
12/04 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah &
12/05 – Tempe, AZ @ The Clubhouse &
12/07 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s !
12/08 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live !
12/09 – New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks !
12/10 – Orlando, FL @ The Social ^^
12/11 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade $

# w/ Earthless, US Christmas
% w/ Earthless, GAZA
& w/ Earthless, Iron Age
! w/ Iron Age, Dark Castle
^^ w/ Torche
$ w/ Torche, Pig Destroyer, Iron Age

[Band photo by GL Johnson]

UPDATE: Stream the LP: