Around Y2K, something unholy must’ve been brewing in the soil of Savanna, Georgia, from whence the three-headed hydra of Mastodon, Kylesa, and today’s pick Baroness sprang. Remember our talk about hard rock, and how some hard rock is metal and some metal is hard rock, but they’re not necessarily the same? To Baroness, they’re the same. The band is equal parts Iron Maiden, Neurosis, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Guitarist John Baizley looks like a South Park Canadian while singing, but he’s got thrash bona fides, and an artistic bent – he paints the color-coded album covers, which constitute one of the best looking catalogs in rock. Blue Record is Baroness’s best album and one of the great metal albums of the 00s decade. It’s got slamming rock like “Jake Leg,” some sludge, and the pseudo-classical interludes that metalheads really seem to like for some reason. And it wraps up in like 40 minutes, which is brief for a band that has released two double albums. Recommended.