Gold & Grey

Gold & Grey is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Baroness. It was released on June 14, 2019, on the band's own label, Abraxan Hymns.

Background

The album is the band's first to feature new guitarist and vocalist Gina Gleason. It was mastered by frequent Flaming Lips collaborator Dave Fridmann, who also produced Baroness' previous album.
The band debuted the album's first single, "Borderlines," in Houston at the start of their co-headlining tour with Deafheaven in March 2019. "Seasons" and "Throw Me an Anchor" were released as singles in April and May, respectively. "Front Toward Enemy" debuted on May 3 as part of Adult Swim's Metal Swim 2 compilation.
During a European tour in support of Gold & Grey, the band performed songs from the record live in Maida Vale Studios for BBC Radio 1's Rock Show with Daniel P. Carter. This session resulted in an extended play titled Live at Maida Vale – Vol. II, which released the following year.

Album title and artwork

In an interview with Revolver, frontman John Baizley explained that the band members were calling the record Orange until the day before it was mastered. He was not fond of the title, and after noticing the phrase "gold and grey" in the album's lyrics, he settled on the Gold & Grey title.
As with the band's previous releases, the cover art was done by Baizley and echoes themes seen on prior recordings that prominently feature scantily clad woman intertwined with scenes inspired by nature. The art work was leaked by music identifying app Shazam which forced Baizley to release it early on the band's Twitter account.

Critical reception

Gold & Grey was widely praised by critics on release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 91, based on 14 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". It is the third highest rated music release of 2019 on the site. Loudwire named it one of the 50 best rock albums of 2019.

Commercial performance

Gold & Grey debuted at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 with roughly 13,000 sales in its first week. It peaked at No. 5 on the Top Album Sales chart, No. 2 on the Hard Rock Albums chart, No. 2 on the Vinyl Albums chart, and it topped the Independent Albums chart. The album also debuted atop the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart, the highest chart position achieved by Baroness to date.

Personnel

;Baroness

John Dyer Baizley – lead vocals, backing vocals, rhythm guitar, percussion, piano, artwork
Gina Gleason – lead guitar, backing vocals, keyboards, lead vocals, synthesizer
Nick Jost – bass, synthesizer, keyboards
Sebastian Thomson – drums

;Guests

Katie Jones – violin and viola on "Anchor's Lament"
Jodi Milbert, Marald van Haasteren, Ben LaFond, Sara Schatz – spoken words on "Blankets of Ash"
Isabela Dyer Thompson Baizley – vocals on "Cold-Blooded Angels"
LMPD – megaphoning on "Borderlines"