Baroness and Unpersons team up for A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk. For Baroness, it serves as a precursor to their forthcoming album for Relapse Records and as a send off for former guitarist Tim Loose. For Unpersons, this split serves as some people's - like mine - first exposure to the band. The two bands have vastly different styles.
The Baroness tracks kick the album off with a crushing arrangement. It is very heavy and the rhythms underlie the thick, ominous atmosphere that the stringed instruments convey so well. When the vocals join the fray, the song "Teiresias" basically explodes at the listener. Baroness' ability to straddle so many genre types, like producer Philip Cope's own band Kylesa, is on full display on the song. There are some very interesting high-pitched riffs that contrast well with crushing, distorted heavy riffs. "Cavite" is a longer track that tops the twelve- minute mark. It is more measured than the visceral nature of the other Baroness track. The rhythms are locked down tight. The guitars, bass, and drums are not just on the same page; they seem like extensions of the same mind. The effect is striking. There are quite a few quiet passages that Baroness takes us through during the journey of the "Cavite". These tracks play with different guitar sounds and expand on what the band seems capable of doing.
Unpersons portion of A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk starts of with "Black Finnegan." The vocals are very expressive. They match well with the noisy music that the band produces. This song is very discordant. In contrast, "Number" seems to make its purpose to run the listener over with sound. The beginning of the track is, quite simply, a bulldozer of sound. "Dry Hand" keeps up the noisy veneer with which Unpersons seem to imbue their songs. The vocals really are the odd glue that holds everything together. They remind me of the howling that David Yow produced with The Jesus Lizard. "A Small Gesture, a Thousand Small Happy Gestures [Shone in the Dust]" might have the longest song title I have seen in quite some time. The music is even noisier than I have shortly come to expect from Unpersons and in a much longer format. At more than six minutes in length, it is almost twice as long as any of their other offerings on A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk. The last part of the song could easily be described as ambient noise with smatterings of disguised voices.
A special note must be made of the artwork for this record. John Baizley (guitarist and vocalist of Baroness) has been very busy of late, providing artwork for the new Pig Destroyer (Phantom
Limb) and the new Darkest Hour (Deliver Us) and while those two are stunning works of art in their own right, A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk is blessed with what is arguably his best work yet. (An interesting note, it was named album cover of the week of 6/26/2007 by MTV, for what that's worth here). It is delicate looking and colorful and hides the menace that is contained on the actual record.
A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk is an excellent record. My only real complaint is the brevity, a recurring issue that I have with all Baroness related releases. I would have liked to have at least two more Baroness tracks and maybe three of four more from Unpersons, but that is just me. What you do get is six excellent songs that showcase a multitude of aspects of the two bands. Combine that with the beautiful art and you get a piece of music worth chasing down and purchasing.
