Critic Score
Based on 20 reviews
2019 Ratings: #34 / 805
User Score
Based on 369 ratings
2019 Rank: #741
Liked by 9 people
Sign In to rate and review

CRITIC REVIEWS

100
NME

To say this album is epic would be an understatement; it’s a work of art in the truest sense.

100
Consequence of Sound

Baroness currently find themselves in a place of great maturity, exhibiting superb musicianship ... The array of instrumentation and emotion throughout not only make Gold & Grey a joy to listen to, but also an achievement of which Baroness can truly be proud.

100
Kerrang!
By trying to annihilate what's gone before and truly raise themselves higher, they've created a special record, with a depth that will still have you under its spell a decade from now.
95
The Line of Best Fit

This is the sound of a world-class artist, with his world-class band, at once unifying and annihilating his own history, putting a concept on a fire and letting us hear it burn.

90
PopMatters

Together, their faultless unified elegance harvests cherished templates and innovative techniques in equal measure. As a result, just about every listener—no matter their history or prior opinions—will deem Gold & Grey Baroness' masterpiece.

90
The 405

With Gold & Grey, Baizley and his cohorts have produced a monumental work of art that’s as dark and forbidding as it is bright and triumphant.

90
Exclaim!

Baroness have outdone themselves with Gold & Grey. Armed with a fresh sound and well-honed talent, they are finally ready to be recognized as one of the most important bands in modern rock music.

90
Metal Injection

Among the rich palette of colors and sounds Baroness has crafted, Gold & Grey is the brightest and most striking of them all.

80
Distorted Sound

That is the task that BARONESS have accomplished here, having written an album that not only stands proud of its own accord, but also fits seamlessly into the bigger picture. Let’s hope they are making music for a long time to come, because the ideas have far from dried up; Gold & Grey is more than a testament to that.

80
Pitchfork
Post-rock, space rock, prog rock, psychedelic rock, grungy Alice in Chains-eyeing hard rock—it’s all here, and since it’s Baroness, it works.
80
Q Magazine
Stellar fifth album is a determined attempt to push back the genre's long-established boundaries, folding in everything from glitchy electronica and lysergic Americana to gnarled pop into their full-frontal noise.
80
The Young Folks

They’ve been constructing tight albums for so long now that they know precisely when to tamp down the edges, as well as precisely when to nurture and develop a song to its full potential. Gold & Grey has something for everyone, beautifully capturing all of the varied reasons to admire Baroness.

80
MetalSucks

Spontaneously melancholy and invigorating, Gold & Grey (the title and the album) perfectly encapsulates how Baroness excel at reaching shining peaks and descending into gloomy valleys.

80
Spectrum Culture

An album of sadness, pain and residual wrath but, above all, acceptance and beauty.

80
Mojo
An epic beast. playing to their strengths while also sprawling in new directions.
80
The Guardian

Their travails have produced an epic, ambitious collection that is beautifully beatific, purifying and uplifting.

80
AllMusic

Thanks to maturity, Fridmann's mix, and uncanny sequencing, every song fits seamlessly inside each proceeding one, delivering a mercurial yet satisfying whole that makes Gold & Grey the band's finest outing to date, if not their masterpiece.

70
Classic Rock
Some space is wasted--the album would feel more concise without the ambient sonic interludes it's peppered with--but when they hit their stride, as on the magnificent Throw Me An Anchor, Baroness seem unstoppable.
70
No Ripcord

Gold & Grey is an expansive work that is one part chamber pop and two parts Viking blitzkrieg.

50
The Needle Drop

Gold & Grey's awful prdouction overshadows its handful of songwriting peaks.

JustSomeGuy
45

Biggest disappointment of the year. How did Baroness fuck up so badly?

I tried listening to the NPR version yesterday. I got five songs in before thinking to myself that it was probably the wrong version, there's no way that this was the version Baroness put out, right? I then waited until last night until it released on Spotify. Again, I got five tracks in before excusing myself from it. 'Maybe I am just tired', I thought to myself, 'there is no way it is this bad.' And here I am now.

There ... read more

WhatTheFunk
42

"Gold & Gray" follows the successful "Purple" (2015). An album that was a metal rebirth after the painful experience of the crash of their bus during a tour. The Baroness of Savannah has also lost Pete Adams, their creative guitarist who has been replaced by the talented Gina Gleason. Leader John Dyer Baizley claims to have created Baroness' best album to date, the deepest, most adventurous and most successful. Not sure I agree after listening to it... Adventurous? Yes, ... read more

Tielur
44

The obvious: poor mixing

The kinda obvious: a tad bit boring

The not so obvious: if this is the version critics got and if they're tone deaf

Listen, I like Baroness, they're a fine ass band who bring a lot of ideas to the table. Those ideas are here but they're underdeveloped. Not all the songs are bad at all, actually some are quite enjoyable and heavy. Though those heavy songs are poorly mixed and the drums (especially the hi-hat and crashes) are fucking EAR PIERCING. The whole project is ... read more

GethynHatch
70

I teetered between kind of liking this to kind of being bored to kind of not liking it throughout this albums entire run time. The sound scapes were interesting and ear catching but were very in one ear out the other in terms of being able to recall songs ideas or motifs. I settled on a 7 because I didn't skip any of it and enjoyed some of the ideas presented but it doesn't get an 8 because it really didn’t strike any form of chord with me.

53

baroness is usually heavy and visceral, but this album is so muddy it just sounds bad a lot of the time

GoblinTheReal
71

Some super engaging baroness fun in this album mixed in with an unwarranted amount of interludes and a few non-starters. I have no issue with the mixing, the problem for me lies in the sheer length which they don't quite take advantage of a lot of the time. Make no mistake some of my favourite baroness songs ever lie in here (especially front toward enemy I adore that song it's grown on me irrationally) but I'd probably recommend listening to just the highlights instead of the entire thing.

Purchasing Gold & Grey from Amazon helps support Album of the Year. Or consider a donation?
Become a Donor
Donor badge, no ads + more benefits.
Advertisement
Sign in to comment
3mo
7mo
4y
4y
4y


Added on: March 13, 2019