Not at all happy with Baroness‘ MORM leanings, Dudley still thinks Live At Maida Vale is “a pretty enjoyable, if unessential listen“.
Following nothing less than total adoration for their “Blue” LP, this writer was in coniptions of excitement when the news passed that Baroness were to unleash a double LP, ‘Yellow and Green‘. Despite initially dazzling with some of the most astounding production ever committed to an alt-metal LP, the project revealed itself to be massively disappointing. A couple of unavoidable flashes of brilliance were mired down by a sense that the band were aiming to dilute ther potency to grab hold of a more commercial fanbase, middle of the road metal or MORM as I’ll elect to call it fruitlessly from now on.
And now, we have this stopgap EP, a session recorded for the BBC while on tour. Thankfully it picks the finer fruit from the LP, and is mostly a pretty enjoyable, if unessential listen. ‘Take My Bones Away‘ and ‘March to the Sea‘ remain by far the two strongest tunes, and the others here are fine, and a decent testament to their live prowess.
Shortly into touring for ‘Yellow and Green‘ the band famously survived an awful bus crash in the UK. While I wish it had never happened, perhaps it’ll prompt a less cynical path for the band, and they’ll deliver us their ‘Pink’.
