There probably aren’t many more popular doom acts than Arkansas crew Pallbearer. They made waves with a series of well-regarded releases in the late 2000’s and teens, but their last record was actually “Forgotten Days” back in 2020. Of course, the world was a very different place back then. After this hiatus, do Pallbearer still have what it takes?
“Mind Burns Alive” is, for me, by far the most introspective and reflective album of their career. That’s quite the statement for a band that has released some of the more studied and – for want of a better word – “gentle” doom / rock of this generation. It’s essentially a measured study of the self; of isolation. What you’re not going to find here are any Sabbathian vibes – it’s really not that kind of stuff. Instead, think of mid-period Anathema or Porcupine Tree as a jumping off point.
The album has a sparse, stripped back feel which dials down the fuzzed out riffage of some previous releases, in lieu of a more refined approach. Here are delicate guitar lines, a spacious rhythm section that punctuates the progressively written songs perfectly. There are plenty of quiet, and almost fragile segments of the songs, including on the arguable album highlight, opener “Where the Light Fades”. The brittle nature of the music is accompanied by the vulnerable vocal stylings of singer Brett Campbell.
If I have a criticism, it’d be that really for my tastes, this is an album that sees Pallbearer stepping away from Metal altogether. That seems really churlish – I remember feeling that way about Anathema back in the day too, but I could do with a little more grit between the more intricate song-writing. The heft and emotional weight of songs like “Daybreak” may not actually need the more distorted side of the house to make the weight of sadness apparent, but when it breaks into the song, it becomes more enjoyable to me. It may well be that I’m just an oaf (it has been said), but I prefer the band when they are at least metal adjacent to their more acoustic minded songs of grief. If you’re a little more sophisticated than me, you may well want to add a point or two to the score here. For me? A good album, but just not gravelly enough for my tastes.
(7/10 Chris Davison)
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