To say that Baroness has been through some things since their last album is a bit of an understatement; after a catastrophic bus crash in England following the release of
Yellow and Green in 2012, half of the band amicably left, and lead singer and guitarist John Dyer Baizley had to relearn how to play the guitar after suffering numerous injuries. The band soldiered on, refusing to quit, enlisting new members, and now returns with
Purple, an album title that (intentionally or not) brings to mind the physical and emotional bruising the band has been through over the past three years. But like a boxer after being knocked down, bruised and bloody, to the canvas, Baroness got up ready to start swinging. "We didn't want to make a mellow, sad, dark thing," said guitarist Pete Adams. "We needed to be up-tempo. We needed to be melodic, and it also needed to be aggressive."
Purple needed, in other words, to be a Baroness album.
