Arkansas doom-mongerers embrace post-rock elegance on intimate fifth album.
CELEBRATED DOYENS OF progressive doom metal, Pallbearer became legendary almost immediately. Debut album Sorrow And Extinction emerged in 2012 to widespread acclaim, as this mysterious band from Little Rock, Arkansas, skilfully blended enormous, post-Sabbath riffing with strange, crestfallen melodies and tons of haunting atmosphere. Twelve years on, Pallbearer are certified legends in the cerebral metal underground, but their new album promises to draw in curious prog fans like never before.
Despite many heavy moments, new release Mind Burns Alive is a fragile and minimalist affair, and by far the most adventurous thing they’ve ever created. The elegant flipside to 2020’s strident and riff-driven Forgotten Days, it perfectly encapsulates Pallbearer’s restless creative ambitions.
“This band are still 100 per cent about what we’re interested in making,” says singer/guitarist Brett Campbell. “That’s why the records are all so different from each other. We do something and say,‘OK, it would be boring to do that again, so let’s do something else next time.’ It’s whatever tickles our fancy at the time, or wherever our heads are at as writers.”
As Campbell explains, the songs on Mind Burns Alive were written alongside those on Forgotten Days, some as far back as late 2018. As he and bassist Joseph D Rowland assembled their respective demos, it became apparent that Pallbearer had two distinct new records to play with: one that fulfilled the band’s accepted remit of artful but crushing doom metal, and another that took their music further out into the prog realm. From the mellifluous restraint of recent single When The Light Fades, to the ornate muscularity of closing epic With Disease, Mind Burns Alive is a beautiful and endlessly dynamic piece of work.
“Forgotten Days was a very stripped-down record for Pallbearer,��
