Heavy Song of the Week: Baroness Flex Their Musical Strengths on “Shine”

Heavy Song of the Week is a feature on Heavy Consequence breaking down the top metal and hard rock tracks you need to hear every Friday. This week, the top selection goes to “Shine” by Baroness.

Baroness might be breaking their long-running streak of color-themed albums with the forthcoming release of Stone, but the band’s tight progressive metal sound remains honed and intact.

The third single from the LP, “Shine,” is the most direct and instantly memorable of the tracks we’ve heard from the LP thus far. The central tremolo riff immediately brings to mind Yellow & Green — some of Baroness’ most tuneful work — and John Baizley’s powerful pipes soar in full flight, complemented by Gina Gleason’s backing vocals.

There’s still plenty of instrumental flourishes and deliberate hiccups in the arrangement to satiate prog heads; however, the stronger emphasis on melody has always suited Baroness well, and does so here.

Honorable Mentions:

3TEETH – “Higher Than Death”

Industrial act 3TEETH have been a mainstay on our Heavy Song of the Week rundowns — a testament to the band’s consistency. Each single from the forthcoming album Endex has been different from the last, exemplifying 3TEETH’s various sonic characteristics, from grinding electro-industrial to more stripped-down alt-rock. “Higher Than Death” falls somewhere in between. Despite plenty of techno textures — for the most part, the production sounds electronic — the track is a big-chord stadium rocker at its core.

Helmet – “Holiday”

Helmet’s new song “Holiday” is a microcosm of the various sounds the alt-metallers have explored over the years. The chorus borders on wall-of-sound shoegaze, with sweetly sung vocals; but the profanity-laced verses make an abrupt shift to the kachunk-(palm-mute)-kachunk breakdown chords of the legendary Meantime album. And it wouldn’t be Helmet without some of that.

Myrkur – “Like Humans”

Amalie Brunn continues to forge her own path with her amorphous project Myrkur. Her earliest musical output leaned more toward alternative pop and singer-songwriter material, before she made the artistic pivot toward black metal with Myrkur. At the time of her transformation, she faced a backlash from metal elitists who labeled her a scene tourist. Undeterred, she embraced the spiritual, solitary elements of black metal, which eventually led her to the source: traditional Nordic folk. Coming full circle, the new Myrkur song “Like Humans” reaches back to her early, melodic stylings, but with a surging post-metal underbelly and the vocal patterns of the aforementioned traditional folk material found on 2020’s Folkesange. It’s a fine start to this new chapter for Brunn, and one that feels like a natural progression given the trajectory of her career.