Sunday: Baroness - Morningstar

     We're only a couple of weeks away now from the release date for the latest colour-coded album Purple from Baroness (what, you thought I was going to talk about something else that comes out in just a couple of weeks?) and the guys aren't letting up in terms of marketing and hype generation. "Shock Me" started streaming less than a month ago, and now we're getting what will presumably be one last appetizer before the main course drops on the 18th.

     As much as I really dug "Shock Me", especially after a few listens, the new track "Morningstar" is probably going to strike Baroness fans as the closest thing to older Baroness that we've yet heard from Purple. Meaty riffs and driving drums are the order of day here, with a buttery, effects-drenched solo that would sound right at home just about anywhere in the Baroness catalogue. An album full of songs like this one and "Shock Me" will be a tasty early Christmas present indeed.

Baroness - Shock Me

     Before I get to your Tuesday song, I'd like you to take a look at the header for this post. Notice anything different? Maybe how it doesn't say what day of the week it is? Yes, that's right kids, after months (literally!) of being behind to varying degrees, I'm all caught up on Songs of the Day. Let's see how long I can keep this plate spinning smoothly, shall we?

     So, Tuesday song then. Sadly, it's not tech, but that doesn't mean it's not fun. The new Baroness record Purple comes out in just about a month's time, so it only makes sense that we're getting another taste in the form of new single "Shock Me". And while first single "Chlorine and Wine" didn't sell me 100% on the new album and the new lineup, I'm pretty much all in after hearing single number two. Energy, melody, guitars, drums -- everything's working on this one. If you needed a surprise, do yourself a favour and have a listen to "Shock Me".

Baroness - Chlorine and Wine

     It seems that it never rains but when it pours, as the saying goes. Or, if you prefer something a little less archaic, good things come in threes. Tune in tomorrow for number three, but read on below for number two, courtesy of none other than Baroness.

     Things have been somewhat quiet, music-wise, in camp Baroness since their horrific bus accident a couple of years back, during the touring for then-fresh Yellow & Green. Fans of the band will be glad to learn that the new record, due out in December, will continue the colourful trend in nomenclature with Purple.

     Based on lead single "Chlorine and Wine", it sounds like Baroness might be continuing the sonic trend started on Yellow & Green as well, rather than returning to the slightly heavier sound from their earlier albums and EPs. How you feel about that is up to you, so why not have a listen or two and craft an informed opinion?

Friday: Baroness - Little Things

     Life always seems to get in the way, doesn't it? And this time I mean that in the best possible way, because this time I'm behind on my Loud Noises posts because of some friends getting married over the weekend (congratulations once again, Megan and Colby!). But that's neither here nor there now, because we're going to get all caught up again starting with a little something for your Friday past.

     That little something is actually a selection of "Little Things" from Baroness' 2012 double helping Yellow & Green (specifically the Yellow disc). Back when this record came out, I read somewhere that "Little Things" is about the birth of John Dyer Baizley's child, an anecdote which, if true, gives the track a really interesting cast. In any case, it's an interesting if melancholy song, so have a listen to this greasy little thing on this rainy grey Monday.

Saturday: Valkyrie - Wintry Plains

     Moving away now from the slice of melancholy that was Friday's song, I've got a chilly belated Saturday song for you to chill to, courtesy of Baroness guitarist Pete Adams.

     In addition to his duties in Baroness, Pete plays in a little project called Valkyrie that's got a new record coming out in a couple of weeks. More importantly, Valkyrie is streaming a new song in advance of the release of Shadows, so you get the advance chance to check things out and see what you think.

     While it certainly doesn't just sound like something from a Baroness clone, "Wintry Plains" definitely does have the southern-fried sludginess you'd expect from an alumni of such an act. Have a listen and see if Shadows might be your kind of jams. Oh, and check out what is presumably some pretty sweet album art!

Friday: The Melvins - City Dump

     The other day, when I was listening to the new Faith No More song, I was doing so on the Ipecac Soundcloud. Every time "Motherfucker" ended, some other song started before I had a chance to go back to the start of the player's chosen playlist for more "Motherfucker". Eventually, however, I started liking the first little bit of that other song, and upon further investigation, this is what I found.

     Your song today is "City Dump" from the 2013 record Tres Cabrones by The Melvins. I've never been a huge Melvins fan, for whatever reason, but by the time I got all the way through "City Dump" I was thoroughly digging things. It's a sludgy, stonery kind of track that almost reminds me of the southern psychedelic grunginess of Mastodon or Baroness.

     I don't know that I'm going to go out and devour The Melvins' back catalogue now, but I certainly won't write them off as quickly as I have in the past for not really being my style. Some of their shit, at least, is most definitely my style.

Sunday: The Matador - Destroyer

     OK, so maybe I was wrong about you yesterday. Maybe thrashy melodeath like the kind peddled by British Bloodshot Dawn isn't your cup of tea. That's fine. Perhaps sludgy post-metal will be more your speed?

     Australian act The Matador has the market cornered on big, crushing post-metal with a decidedly sludgy, doomy feel. Mastodon and Baroness both come immediately to mind, but to say that The Matador sounds like either of those bands wouldn't be quite right. Mastodon are a little proggier, and Baroness are a little bit more folky space rock.

     The Matador, on the other hand, are just big and heavy and abrasive. Their latest Destroyer has apparently been three years in the making, but those three years have resulted in a seasoned, refined sound, the sound of a band that's confident with where it's at. I'm not sure if that makes any sense to you, so you should probably just have a listen to title track "Destroyer" and see if you can decipher some meaning from my sage musings.

Callisto - Stasis

     I've just been reading about Callisto on Heavyblogisheavy, and I'm intrigued enough by their suggestion of the song "Stasis" that I'm going to pass that recommendation along to you. Read on if you're post-metal fan.

     "Stasis", and the album Providence from which it comes, reminds me a little of The Ocean, or even Baroness, in terms of the qualities of its heaviness: large doses of melody, often a little melancholy, with veins of sludgy rough edges sewn throughout. It's a balance that makes the seven-and-a-half minutes of a song like "Stasis" fly by in short order. I haven't yet gone back through Callisto's catalogue as Eden over at Heavyblog encourages, but I've definitely got something new to chew on. Why don't you chew too?

Sunday: Baroness - Take My Bones Away

     In an effort to catch up after the last couple of days of lagging behind I'm taking inspiration from wherever it comes, so please forgive the following tenuous reasoning for featuring what really is a cool tune.

     We went to a local rib festival yesterday to sample a variety of barbecued meats, which immediately suggest to me a song with a meaty riff. But meaty riffs are pretty plentiful if you look for them, so we need a different rib-related them. How about bones?

     By the magic of that explanation, I present to you your Sunday song, "Take My Bones Away", from the Yellow disc of Baroness' 2012 double album, which has the benefit of being both a "boney" and having some meaty riffage. As new album news rolls in from one band or another, I can't help but hope John Baizley and company are close to being in a place where they can record again after their very scary August 2012 bus crash.

Sunday: Baroness - Jake Leg

     Today's band is one that isn't working on new material, as far as I know, but oh how I would like them to be.

     Indeed, Baroness are likely still in the midst of getting a pair of new members acclimated to the world and way of life that is Baroness, and as such new material might not even be on the horizon for Baizley and the boys. While we debate which colour album will be next, I guess we'll just have to be content with the colour spectrum we've already got.

     "Jake Leg", a driving and relentless number, is one of my favourite tracks from 2009's Blue Record, so let's listen to it while we pray to the metal gods that new, heavy Baroness material is closer than we think.

Monday Music Mayhem

     At the risk of sounding like I'm making excuses (which I suppose I am... shut up...) I'm going to lay a good chunk of the blame for my apparent inability to keep to a schedule lately on my early morning starts at work. My normal day starts at five in the morning, and the combination of that ungodly hour and an average of probably only five or six solid hours of sleep beforehand, on a regular basis, is that, unless I catch up with naps or keep myself well-caffeinated, by the end of the week I often end up falling asleep well before I mean to, and before I've gotten all of the day's shit done.

     But, to paraphrase the words of House Lannister, "a bearded man always pays his debts", so once again you're getting a hat-trick post today (that's three goals in a single game, for you non-hockey types out there), covering Saturday, Sunday, and today all in one shot. So let's get started.

     For your Saturday song, I'm going to need you to close your eyes and picture the following: old-school prog-influenced death metal (think old Opethy kinda stuff) filtered through the lens of a band like Baroness, if Baroness drew its melodic sensibilities and plaintive passages more from straight forward rock and less from countrified bluegrass. Now open your eyes, and find that you're gazing at the totally badass album art for Cormorant's 2011 disc Dwellings. There's a good chance you don't know these guys, but you should, especially if the word picture I painted you above sounded at all flavourful to you. A caveat, however: only two of the seven tracks on Dwellings clock in at less than five minutes long, so first time listeners are in for some attrition. But if you give Cormorant a chance, songs like "Funambulist" will take you for a ride.

     Next up, Sunday, and I'm going to do the unthinkable and take a single track out of the context of its "greater than the sum of its parts" album. You know the kind of album I'm talking about, even if I'm not doing the best job of articulating it right now: those magical records that work perfectly as a single piece of music rather than merely a collection of separate songs. Sure, those songs are good, but put 'em together and you've got a real slice of fried gold on your hands. Such is the case with "Quittance" from the debut LP Februus by Uneven Structure, a cool tune in its own right but also a piece of a much more awesome whole. Listen to "Quittance", but by all means listen to Februus from start to finish if you haven't already. Djent has become kind of a bad word, but Uneven Structure will show you one example of how powerful that kind of a sound can be.

     And for today, Monday, we're going to do a bit of a throwback to how I used to run Mondays around here with a Metallica Monday.In particular I'm picking "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)", an old favourite of mine from way back when I was in high school and we used to attempt a few Metallica covers when jamming. Between us, we knew all the obvious ones, but we also liked to dust off this lesser-known (or lesser-liked, anyways) cut from 88's Master of Puppets, so I encourage you to dust it off too.

     Whew. Caught up. Again. Meet you back here tomorrow? Deal!

Song of the Day: Baroness - March to the Sea

     Usually when I'm picking songs for this, bands have a tendency to wait until after I've chosen a given song to released a video for it. Whether it's a honest-to-gods music video or some live footage, I'm usually left to update you after the fact, or else simply let the occasion pass unmarked. Not today.

Song of the Day: Baroness - Eula

     Whether or not you're a fan of the band's work, I think we can all agree that Baroness has been through some shit in the last year. A tour bus crash (last summer in England) and the subsequent departure of the rhythm section (drummer Allen Blickle and bassist Matt Maggioni left earlier this year) are both things that could spell the end of a band, and I for one hope that the new line-up finds its groove and its fans right where it left them.

Song of the Day: Colossus - Pillars of Perennity

     Just a quick post this evening to turn you on to a sludgy Swedish prog outfit with a new album. Tell me more, you say? OK!

Song of the Day: Mastodon - Crack the Skye

     A wee bit late  tonight/this morning, but nevermind. Again tonight I've got to do a little creative logicking to get where I want to be, but it'll be fine, you'll see. What the fuck am I talking about? Well, yesterday I wanted to do a Tesseract song, but for want of a new Tesseract song I got where I wanted to be via the roundabout way of Fellsilent, a band tangentially connected to Tesseract in a 6 degrees kind of way.

Song of the Day: Baroness - The Birthing

     If you follow any metal news at all, and certainly if you're a fan of the band, you probably already know that two of the dudes from Baroness have left the band. Bass player Matt Maggioni and, most lamentably, drummer Allen Blickle have amicably parted ways with the band, delivering Baroness another blow following last year's serious bus crash. Frontman John Baizley has said that the band will continue, but chances are it'll be a bit before we hear anything like new Baroness material.

Song of the Day: Baroness - Cocainium

     I'm sure you all know how awesome Baroness is. I'm sure you're all aware of their special brand of sludgy space metal and of their proficiency at creating head bobbing grooves. But have you ever thought about the amount of disco-type sounds, beats, and influences going on over the course of your average Baroness record? No? What am I talking about?

2012 Round-up, Part 1: Loud Noises Ten Best of 2012

     If you follow any metal blogs at all (or any blogs or websites about anything, really) you know that this time of year is “Best of” season. Everybody and their mother’s dog is sounding off about their favourite albums of 2012, and dammit that bandwagon is looking a little empty without me. I've got opinions about how 2012 went down, and although I get the sense it'll be a bit like pissing into a hurricane, I'm nevertheless going to undertake the valiant effort of making those opinions known to you, dear reader. So having said all of that, it is my pleasure to present to you part one of the Loud Noises 2012 end of the year round up: the Loud Noises Ten Best of 2012!!

     Now, before we get started, there is one important thing to keep in mind: my tendency towards indecisiveness. You see, I often have trouble making firm and confident decisions. Deciding what to have for dinner can prove quite vexing some days. So as you might be able to imagine, the task of ranking my favourite albums of the year and culminating definitively with a choice that I think stands above all others is one that might very well unburden me of my sanity. In the interest of keeping me from coming completely unhinged, I've decided to just tell you about my ten favourite albums from the past year, in no particular order, just a list, here's ten great records you should check out, bam, done. In fact, just so you can't infer anything unintended from my choice of structure, I'm not even going to number this list of epicness. How do you like them apples?

- Skyharbor - Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos
   Tremendously talented international bands spawned from bedroom and basement recording set-ups seem to be becoming increasingly common in the overlapping worlds of heavy and progressive music, but for my money India's Skyharbor comes out well ahead. Combine complex, melodic, and of course heavy guitar riffs with drums dripping groove and powerful vocals from my boy Dan Tompkins, and you've got an album I've listened to an absolute shit ton of this year, and an album that's so much more than mere djent. It's sometimes easy to forget that Blinding White Noise is Skyharbor's very first release. I for one will be very excited to hear where this group goes next, and I think if you heard them you would be too.

- The Contortionist - Intrinsic
   I could describe The Contortionist's album Intrinsic in one of two ways: I could wax loquaciously about how Intrinsic is a stellar sophomore effort that shows The Contortionist to be a band maturing very nicely. I could talk about how Intrinsic strikes a careful balance between being grand and expansive and being lean and focused. I could talk about how while I maybe don't think it deserved the sheer volume of hype it received online prior to its release, I do think it's a cool and diverse album from a young band that is definitely worthy of your attention. Or I could just use one word to sum up Intrinsic: keyboards! Either way, I was very glad I picked this one up, and very bummed when The Contortionist ended up not playing here on Hallowe'en due to Veil of Maya dropping out of a Canadian mini-tour. Come on back, guys!

- Periphery - Periphery II: This Time It's Personal
   Speaking of hype, we all knew Periphery's second full length was going to be a monster, if only because the interwebs told us so. A bigger, badder record with more of everything fans liked about the first one, and indeed more input from band members whose names aren't Misha Mansoor. My only complaint about this album is that every song is so chock full, so 110%, that it loses a bit of the impact it might have with a bit more ebb and flow, a bit more dynamics. Of course, I can't really fault Periphery too much for crafting an album that is monotonously good, can I? Periphery might need some new tricks when the time comes for Periphery III: Back to the Periphery, but for the time being Periphery has upped their game in every way for Periphery II.

- The Faceless - Autotheism
   The observant reader will by this point have noticed at least one trend in this best of 2012 list, namely that a number of these albums were highly anticipated and greatly hyped before their respective releases. The latest release from tech/death prodigies The Faceless was no exception. OK, maybe it was a bit of an exception, in the sense that it fully warranted both anticipation and hype. I jumped on the The Faceless bandwagon with Planetary Duality, which I really dug, so I was really excited to hear the follow-up, and I was really pleased with the result. Hell, the opening three track "Autotheism" suite alone is worth the price of admission, and there's six other tracks on the record! Some fans might not have been able to get into the proggier direction guitarist/songwriter/singer Michael Keene chose for his band (those who say saxophone has no place in metal, for example), but I for one think the step up from Planetary Duality to Autotheism bodes extremely well for the step from Autotheism to wherever The Faceless ends up next.

- Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage
   I could say a lot of things about Gojira's fantastic 2012 selection of doom and groove, L'Enfant Sauvage, most of which have probably already been said a dozen times on a dozen websites, but I think the most ringing endorsement of this album I can give anyone is to say that it made a Gojira fan out of me. Prior to hearing this album, I was a casual, lukewarm Gojira fan at best, really only knowing a few of their more "mainstream" songs. But L'Enfant Sauvage is all killer, no filler, with every song being solid and not at all skippable, which I find is something to be said for an album of any genre, let alone a genre as potentially pummeling as metal. If L'Enfant Sauvage can make a Gojira convert out of me, it can make a convert out of anyone.

- Trioscapes - Separate Realities
If I could say a lot of things about Gojira's L'Enfant Sauvage, then I can't say enough about the debut album from three-piece jazz fusion act Trioscapes. Among the many glowing statements I might make about Separate Realities: it'll make a jazz fan out of even the most staunch metalhead, especially when you consider that one full third of its membership (bass player Dan Briggs) does double duty in both Trioscapes and prog champs Between the Buried and Me; it'll also make jazz fans out of your friends and associates when played at gatherings and get-togethers (yeah, I've put Trioscapes on at parties, to largely positive reactions); Trioscapes'll even give metal-fan you and your non-metal-fan girlfriend something badass to share. Yes, with its deep, deep grooves and super funky riffs enough for days on end, Trioscapes' Separate Realities is the great jazzy equalizer.

- Deftones - Koi No Yokan
   2010's Diamond Eyes is widely hailed as a return to form for the Deftones, a rebottling of the lightning of the seminal White Pony, and if you accept this logic then 2012's Koi No Yokan is proof positive that Diamond Eyes wasn’t a fluke and Deftones are capable of making lightning strike the same spot again and again and again. It's too bad that original bassist Chi Cheng is still recovering from a very serious car accident more than four years ago, but at least Sergio Vega is continuing his terrific job of holding down the low end of things. As a result, a playthrough of Koi No Yokan doesn't leave one wondering "Aw, where's Chi?" but rather "Wow, Deftones can still write a captivating album, can't they?" They're not reinventing the wheel or their sound, but then why should they? With Deftones it's long been about the quality of their songs rather than doing something radically new with each record; as far back as White Pony, Deftones had found the rough formula for what works for them, and they've been playing around with that formula ever since. Sometimes the resulting collection of songs is more Diamond Eyes and sometimes it's more Saturday Night Wrist (which is a good record, don't get me wrong). Koi No Yokan is a rock solid collection of songs, which is a pretty lofty achievement in my book.

- Baroness - Yellow & Green
   2012 was a tumultuous year for Baroness to say the least: in July they released Yellow & Green, the much anticipated follow-up double album to killer sophomore effort Blue, to widespread acclaim, and then in August they were involved in a pretty serious bus crash while on tour in England. The band is recovering well from their various injuries (which included broken bones and fractured vertebrae) but it's still a major setback in a career, and a terrifying event for anyone to undergo. However, it seems like Baroness will rise again and forge ahead, so Baroness fans can take heart and, in the meantime, take pleasure in a double album that's as dark and melancholy as it is plaintive and beautiful. Listeners expecting a straight up increase in "heaviness" might be disappointed, but listeners looking for a deep and interesting listen will find it here in spades.

- Between the Buried and Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence
   As we've already seen, 2012 was a year with some pretty big, pretty highly anticipated releases, and the latest prog-metal opus from Between the Buried and Me was no exception. The band's track record of producing works of technically magnificent madness dovetailed nicely with the introductory EP Hypersleep Dialogues they released in 2011 as a teaser for Future Sequence to create an atmosphere of rabid expectation. And then they delivered, blowing us all away with an audio roller coaster ride through the stars. I think I'm personally still a bigger fan of The Great Misdirect, because I just really like how that collection of songs hangs together as a piece of music, but there's no denying that Future Sequence is a slice of Between the Buried and Me at the top of their game. If you're at all a fan of technically progressive metal or Between the Buried and Me, and have somehow not heard this record yet, stop what you're doing and go get a copy right now. Then come back, put it on, and finish reading this. Or just finish this first. Either way, don't run away for good just yet, because we're not quite done yet...

- Sylosis - Monolith
   The latest slab of thrash from the purveyors of shredding from Reading may not have been a record widely anticipated by the metal world at large, but I've been a fan of Sylosis since their first EP so I was definitely looking forward to it. And if 2012 is any indication of what 2013 might be like for Sylosis, by the time they get around to recording the follow-up to Monolith I won't be the only one who's excited. For now we all have to be satisfied with Monolith, the third full length album from modern British thrash titans Sylosis, and it's a doozy. I fee like it might lack a little of the fire, a little of the magical spark, that connected me so well with some of their earlier work, but that's not to say Monolith isn't...well, monolithic. From one end to the other it's tasty metal goodness. Sure, there's some quieter bits, and some slower bits, but the sheer riffage-per-minute numbers on this one are off the charts. I always try to talk Sylosis up to my friends who like metal, so let this be (another) lesson to you: if you somehow don't know Sylosis by now, get to know them. Like I said, after releasing Monolith in 2012 and then snagging a tour spot opening for Lamb of God, Sylosis are poised for a 2013 that you'll want to be a part of.

Well, there you have it, ten records that I listened to a lot of in 2012 and that I think I liked more than anything else I heard released last year. No doubt you're already familiar with at least some of these, but hopefully there's at least one you don't know and can check out, because you know how I like turning you on to new stuff. Aww yeah you do. Anyways, until part 2 of the 2012 year end report is ready for your collective eye- and ear-holes, why don't you crank some of the above? You won't be sorry you did. Schuss!

Song of the Day: Baroness - A Horse Called Golgotha

     Today's song practically picked itself for me. I don't know if you know Baroness, but these Mastodony metallers from Georgia are set to release their third album (or would it be their third and fourth albums?) of crunchy metal goodness. Following in the tradition of freshman Red and sophomore Blue albums, the latest from Baroness is a polychromatic double album entitled Yellow & Green, and it comes out today. So the choice was easy: today's song had to be a Baroness song. But which one? There again, the choice was easy: good song + wacky video = song of the day.

     Your song for today is "A Horse Called Golgotha" from Baroness' second LP, Blue. If you're a Baroness fan, put this one on to hold you over until you've got the new album, and if you're not, put this one on and become a convert.