…Well, I should be honest. I listened to about half of Blue Record by Baroness before getting bored and deciding to shut it off and watch this week’s episode of House on the DVR. Fact is, it’s not even that bad, or bad at all, really, I just don’t like peer pressure. The Onion rated it as one of the best metal albums of the decade, it’s Decibel‘s album of the year; hell, I don’t think I’ve seen a list yet without it showing up somewhere. That’s a surefire way to turn me off.

Not to mention the pretentiousness of the thing — but I can get down with all kinds of self-indulgence in the right context, so that can’t really be an issue, can it? I guess it’s just something contrary in my nature. Just me being a dick. I own every release Baroness has put out to date. Standing in Snake Eyes Vinyl in Austin, TX, I remember vividly saying to myself, “Well, I don’t really like these guys, but maybe I will at some point, so I better buy this stuff.” That was the First and Second EPs. Then they put out Red Album and it sounded like watered-down Mastodon to me. Blue Record sounds like watered-down Mastodon that’s bought into its own press and everyone exclaiming its genius. I’ve yet to find a reason to care.

But I’m obviously in the minority as regards the band, as critics the world over have been making their shorts sticky to Blue Record since its release in October. Maybe it’s a generational thing. I’ll allow for that. But I like Torche, so it’s not like I’m against the new/hip school entirely. With Baroness though sometimes it feels like people are just kissing their ass so they can get guitarist/vocalist John Dyer Baizley to do the art for their band’s album. His art does rule, and I like guitarist Pete Adams in Valkyrie and bassist Summer Welch in Birds of Prey, so even the component parts of Baroness are inoffensive, it’s just the whole I don’t dig. Blue Record, which will probably get one or two more chances to do so before disappearing to the nether regions of shelf space , has yet to change my mind. Maybe I’ve missed the point.

The children love Baroness, and though I don’t get it, I wouldn’t want that to stop anyone from checking out this combined listening party/show tomorrow night, Oct. 1, in Manhattan. They’re going to be playing the new Baroness record and there will be sets by Fight Amp, Moth Eater and Voyager, as you can see from the nifty poster below. You know you’ve been looking for an excuse to get wasted on Thursday…

A couple days ago, I sent Birds of Prey vocalist Ben Hogg (also of Beaten Back to Pure and the even more extreme Plague the Suffering) an email, asking him if he would kindly write up a feature on his experience making The Hellpreacher, the third BOP album, due out in April via Relapse. His response was a reassuring, “I’m down. Gimme a few days,” and I knew then the right choice had been made.

True to his word, a couple days later, Ben sent the following report on the origins of the band and the coming together of The Hellpreacher. After the jump, bear witness to the one and only Ben Hogg.

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