Baroness Announce New Album Purple, Share "Chlorine & Wine"

Baroness' last album Yellow & Green came out in July 2012. A month later, while on tour in England, the band was involved in a bus accident that left nine people injured. But by summer 2013, they were back on the road. Now, the band has announced a new album.

Purple is out December 18 via the band's newly formed label Abraxan Hymns. The album was produced by Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Sleater-Kinney). Watch an animated clip for the track "Chlorine & Wine" below. The image above is just one quadrant of the full album cover art, which will be revealed later.

Following the accident, drummer Allen Blickle and bassist Matt Maggioni left the band. In the current Baroness lineup, guitarist/vocalists John Baizley and Pete Adams are joined by bassist/keyboardist Nick Jost and drummer Sebastian Thomson (of Trans Am).

A North American tour will be announced soon. The band plays the Reading and Leeds festivals in England this weekend.

Baizley said of the new album in a statement:

After releasing a lengthy and investigative record like Yellow & Green we all felt that we needed to make something much more direct and immediate. We wanted to write with our normal focus on artistry, balanced against an increased level of energy and focus. It was important for us to write our new songs with the type of enthusiasm and expressiveness that could act as a counterpoint to the album’s dark themes. As a result, the music came out in an intense, heavy and sonically captivating in a new way, which was important, loathe, as we are to fall into any kind of complacency pitfall or formulaic songwriting routine. Purple is the most fully realized representation of our intention as a band; considering the amount of physical and mental energy spent writing it, we have accomplished something which would have seemed impossible to us a couple of years ago.

Purple:

01 Morningstar
02 Shock Me
03 Try to Disappear
04 Kerosene
05 Fugue
06 Chlorine & Wine
07 The Iron Bell
08 Desperation Burns
09 If I Have to Wake Up (Would You Stop the Rain)
10 Crossroads of Infinity

Watch Baroness play "March to the Sea" and discuss their bus accident on Pitchfork.tv's "+1":

via Evan Minsker and Amy Phillips