Now available on red colored vinyl in a new 2013 edition, presented in a gorgeous gatefold package with a printed inner sleeve that really does justice to John Baizley's great artwork. The LP also includes a plastic dropcard that gives you an account password to access a free digital download of the album.

I've been looking forward to this split ever since it was first announced at the end of last year - a split album featuring two bands from Savannah, Georgia, each one in possession of their own unique progressive, crusty metal: Baroness with their epic, melodic crustcore-prog and Unpersons's manic, gloriously weird combination of the Jesus Lizard and metallic pummel. Featuring more amazing artwork from Baroness' John Dyer Baizley, A Grey Sigh In A Flower Husk brings these two together for just over a half-hour of raging power, which begins with two new Baroness tracks that serve as an appetite-whetter for their upcoming album for Relapse. Yeah, there's only two songs from 'em here, but it's almost 18 minutes of music on their half of the split and frankly, both of these songs CRUSH IT. "Teiresias" is the shorter of the two, a mighty riff feast that twists and turns through winding metallic crush and spidery twin-guitar harmonies, which explodes brilliantly and suddenly in the middle of the song with a passage of downtuned sludgy majesty that sounds like The FUcking Champs meets Torche, at least to my overcaffienated brain. Their second track is called "Cavite", and this is Baroness at their sprawling, proggy best, a labyrinth of chugging guitars and Maiden-eqsue harmonies, hypnotic riffchug heard through a cheap microphone which suddenly erupts into panoramic prog-metal, a dreamy middle passage through spacey post-rock, and a freaked-out drum solo. Awesome. These guys take the best elements of The Champs and epic crustlords Tragedy, Neurosis and Mastodon and turn out a mighty metallic assault that continues to kick my ass each time I spin these jams.

So how do Baroness' buddies and fellow Savannah-ites measure up on this shared split? Pretty solid, actually. Unpersons have been generally overlooked despite having a couple of releases on Life Is Abuse and At A Loss, but their fusion of Jesus Lizard's manic noise rock and crusty metal is completely crushing, as is displayed with their 4 songs here. The riffs go from hammering sludge to more jagged and jangly chords, and Kylesa drummer Carl McGinley bashes the crap out of his kit, anchoring the band with furious fills and offbeat rhythms. It's the vocals that really set Unpersons apart though, a psychotic mewling meltdown that's very reminsicent of David Yow. Unperson's highlight here is the final track "A Small Gesture, A Thousand Small Happy Gestures (Shone In The Dust)", a lengthy freakout that drops some flattening bomb-string action in amongst their psychotic post-punk flavored heaviness. It's massive neo-noise rock, as unhinged as recent releases from Black Elk and Akimbo, and an excellent companion to Baroness on this split. Highly recommended.