Baroness & Unpersons - A Grey Sigh In A Flower Husk (2007) [Split CD]

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Baroness & Unpersons - A Grey Sigh In A Flower Husk (2007) [Split CD]

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It's not often we get to see a split between two very interesting sludge doom acts like Unpersons and Baroness. One of my good friends Hadley from Columbus is actually a big Baroness fan, having several poster fliers hanging up around her living room in her apartment. So needless to say, I'm at least well acquianted with one of them. Both bands are from Savannah, Georgia, a city well documented for its post-hardcore scene of every imaginable subgenre. I've personally never had a chance to become a big fan of any band from this area except for Circle Takes the Square, and even that was a short lived musical affair. While I still respect the band immensely for the amount of power they were able to put out, their pure poetic writings, and their skillful complex musicianship, I just cannot get so deeply into their genre. However, I do wish I could. The story is rather the same with these two artists. The music is intelligent and beautiful and I can tell this, but post-hardcore music of any style just really isn't my cup of tea. They both do it in a way that can make a metalhead smile and nod his head in rhythm though.

Baroness especially has a way of taking melodic twinges from the gothenburg scene and incorporating it into their music, while mixing technical and progressive influences, just never really hitting a fast speed. There is an especially tense section towards the 9 minute mark in Cavite. One thing is for sure about Baroness, the music they create is obviously a very special experience and process for them, and nothing about it is simple. It is also obvious that this music means a great deal to them emotionally. I could feel every note on their side of the split like it was one that I wrote myself. Very very powerful music. Unpersons definitely took the side of hardcore moreso than anything else. Very disharmonic guitar parts combined with screamo vocals and very sludgey bass and very uptempo drum beats and fills. Strangely enough, the vocalist sounds dead on Kurt Cobain at times. The vocals are almost funny at times from the overdramatic effects of the screams and sounds like near crying/bawling.

Needless to say, I definitely preferred Baroness's side of this split over Unpersons'. But they were definitely some likable qualities to be found in their music still. It was just those damn vocals. I can get past vocals on almost any occasion, but this was just incredibly foul sounding. The bands were definitely suitable to be on a split together though. If you're a huge sludge doom fan, or even just a mediocre one you may be interested in this release. For the Baroness side its certainly worth a purchase. Unless you're into really abstract post-hardcore, I'd stay away from Unpersons merch though…However it is my understanding that that scene is full of really artistic kids so perhaps this really is up the alley of a lot of people. Perhaps I'm just out of whack. Perhaps I should end this review…now.

~ www.heathenharvest.com