(Review from rollingstone.com, allmusic)

Joan Baez’s most unusual album, Baptism is of a piece with the “concept” albums of the late 60s, but more ambitious than most and different from all of them.

Baez by this time was immersed in various causes, concerning the Vietnam War, the human condition, and the general state of the world, and it seemed as though every note of music that she sang was treated as important — sometimes in a negative way by her opponents; additionally, popular music was changing rapidly, and even rock groups that had seldom worried in their music about too much beyond the singer’s next sexual conquest were getting serious.

Baptism was Baez getting more serious than she already was, right down to the settings of her music, and redirecting her talent from folk song to art song, complete with orchestral accompaniment. Selections from early and modern poets of Europe, Asia and America, including poems by William Blake, Federico Garcia Lorca, Jacques Prevert and Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Together with an old Welsh song and a Negro lullaby, the collection has a remarkable unity and striking impact. The net result is a fascinating, if disparaging, journey through our time spanning several centuries.

Side one is a magnificent and impassioned out-cry against the ravages of war, violence and the insanity of spilled blood. In a pure, prose voice, Miss Baez evokes the indignity and horror in the pleas of those who protest to the dynastic Chinese minister of War. In Jacques Prevert’s “Song In The Blood,” she intones the rhythmic cycle of spilled blood and death as the earth turns with immutable regularity. She is truly a woman who has seen too much slaughter, her voice sounding detached, matter-of-fact, foretelling only blood and more death.

Blake’s “London” and Norman Rosten’s “In Guernica” on the same side are provocative and very effective, the net effect being an uncompromising and brutal vision of war and death evoked by a gentle woman’s voice and orchestration in a somber, minor key.

Side two is clearly a spiritual chronology revealing the multiple baptisms accompanying the loss of innocence. The happy nonsense of the opening passages of Joyce’s “Portrait Of the Artist As A Young Man” are supplanted by the sinister fantasies of Rimbaud, the desperate hope of love in Yevtushenko’s “Colours” and finally, lamentation and grief.

Taken as a whole, the album is a very personal statement about the nature of man and the ghastly paradoxes of life and death. While some passages are very moving and beautiful Baptism is inescapably depressing — as it should be.

Track List:
01. Old Welsh Song – 1:16
02. I Saw The Vision Of Armies – 1:16
03. Minister Of War – 1:10
04. Song In The Blood 4:28
05. Casida Of The Lament – 1:01
06. Of The Dark Past – 1:59
07. London – 1:19
08. In Guernica – 1:00
09. Who Murdered The Minutes 3:21
10. Oh, Little Child – 1:25
11. No Man Is An Island – 0:56
12. From Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man – 2:14
13. All The Pretty Little Horses – 1:14
14. Childhood III – 1:08
15. The Magic Wood – 2:27
16. Poems From The Japanese – 2:21
17. Colours – 1:13
18. All In Green Went My Love Riding 3:24
19. Gacela Of The Dark Death – 2:09
20. The Parable Of The Old Man And The Young – 0:51
21. Evil – 1:30
22. Epitaph For A Poet – 1:15
23. Old Welsh Song – 1:20
24. Mystic Numbers- 36. Wedding Song (Unreleased Bonus) – 1:06
25. When The Shy Star Goes Forth In Heaven (Bonus) – 1:24
26. The Angel (Bonus) – 1:32

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