HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Purple – Baroness
The year is 2012 and Savannah, Georgia progressive metal titans BARONESS, following some lineup changes, are on a massive high after releasing their third full-length album Yellow & Green (following 2007s Red Album and 2009s Blue Record) and it is their most sprawling and emphatic album yet. A double album opus that revels in its grandeur and covers a variety of progressive sounds, many of which are much more melodic than the music that BARONESS had put out previously.
Yellow & Green released in July of that year and was an immediate smash with fans and media alike, hailing praise on a band who seemed destined to follow fellow Georgia heavyweights MASTODON into the upper echelons of heavy music with their heavy but forward thinking music, with songs on the album like Take My Bones Away and March To The Sea becoming instant anthems.
With the band heading straight out on the road upon the release of Yellow & Green, the stage was set for them to expand on their growing reputation as a premier live act, with the anthems of Yellow & Green ready made for the live arena and for a while, this was certainly the case, with BARONESS touring Europe to ecstatic audiences, eager to hear the band play live in all their glory.
All came crashing down however, when on tour in England, the bus that BARONESS were touring in, fell from a viaduct near Bath, due to heavy rain and reduced visibility. Thankfully, there were no fatalities in the crash but the band were left with a multitude of injuries with vocalist/guitarist John Dyer Baizley suffering a broken arm and leg, while drummer Allen Blickle and bassist Matt Maggioni each suffered fractured vertebrae.
The accident had an understandably profound effect on the band, with periods of uncertainty about their future, and the following year, both Blickle (a founding member who tragically passed away in 2025) and Maggioni both left the band and were replaced by Sebastian Thomson and Nick Jost respectively, and this ushered in a new era in the history of Baroness, and in turn turned darkness into light.
After that uncertainty, and with the new lineup of Baizley, Thomason, Jost and guitarist Pete Adams in place, BARONESS took to the studio in 2014 with producer Dave Fridmann at the helm, to work on their next chapter, an extremely transformative one and the result was Purple. Released in December 2015, and this triumphant return was a huge sounding record, and one that that was, of course, shaped by their near death experience but turned into something that was truly both cathartic and beautiful, all soundtracked by the biggest and most forward thinking songs that BARONESS had ever made, the songs on the album took the ideas that started on Yellow & Green but took them into even more vast sonic plateaus.
From the triumphant opening salvo Morningstar onwards, this was a crowning glory for BARONESS, in the face of losing it all, the band created something truly glorious with their most epic songs to date, and while you listened to it, you could feel the pain through the music and the lyrics of Baizley, but also feel the healing power coming straight from the speakers.
Continuing with the cleansing release of Shock Me and the immediate power of Try To Disappear to the double whammy of Kerosene and Fugue, and onto the closing trio of The Iron Bell, Desperation Burns and If I Have to Wake Up (Would You Stop the Rain?). With the truly epic Chlorine & Wine acting as the centrepiece of Purple, this was an album that showed the brilliance of the return of BARONESS, and these songs were the results of something that would have ended so many bands careers.
You can feel the horror of what had happened being cleansed as these songs play out but rather than revelling in misery (which would have been perfectly understandable), the results sounded redemptive and positive, showcasing the strength of BARONESS. As they took this record to the live stage, the songs took on another level of catharsis when they were played live and having caught them on the Purple tour, this was certainly evident.
The fact that BARONESS took to touring again after what had happened was another positive aspect of the power of Purple. Thankfully, the brilliance of a BARONESS live show is something that continues to this day, with tracks from the album like Shock Me and Chlorine & Wine still retaining their slots in their live set.
Purple opened up doors for BARONESS that had previously remained closed. From Grammy nominations to supporting METALLICA, the band’s profile rose and that is due to their sheer resilience and, of course, these massively crafted and perfectly executed songs.
Purple marked the beginning of a new era for BARONESS, shaping the future of the band with Adams leaving after the record’s release, subsequently being replaced by Gina Gleason, a lineup that is solidified to this day. The band’s sound is continuously as huge as it sounds on this record, and it all started with Purple, an album that might never have existed. We are damn thankful that it does.
Purple was originally released on December 18th, 2015 via Abraxan Hymns.
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