Pallbearer - Heartless

Pallbearer, with their first two albums, have shown the world of metal that they are without a doubt a group much more capable and exciting than the average doom metal band, despite only playing some pretty standard, somewhat proggy doom metal on both those albums. While those first two albums were pretty solid, respectable funeral dirges of doom, they had their weak spots that could not be ignored. In some ways those albums dragged on, not the way doom is meant to drag on, but in ways that it was hard not to just ignore the music until it made itself interesting again later. And I couldn’t really see Pallbearer going anywhere spectacular in their future if they continued in their ways in the same basic manner the whole time, carrying the same doom coffin in a straight doomy line going slowly through time into doomy nowhere. Heartless in numerous ways finds them planted in their comfort zone, but in more ways taking and succeeding in taking the vital steps to bettering themselves and their music.

It sounds like this time around, Pallbearer really dissected their sound and analyzed each component of it to find ways to improve it. Here to stay are the unmistakably slow tempo and reliably simple interworking of the instrumental parts, but where there was room to improve in the vocal and song-writing departments Pallbearer definitely stepped up their game from their Foundations of Burden to prevent their Sorrow and Extinction of doom metal if you will……….. please don’t hate me for doing that. But on the serious side of it again, the most notable improvement Pallbearer makes is that of their composition, which sees them construct much more diverse songs and produces a much more emotionally complex experience compared, not only to their previous two albums, but also to much of what exists in doom metal right now. “I Saw the End” opens the album as comfortably as it can, sticking well to the band’s doom metal blueprint, but it’s kept brief (by Pallbearer and doom metal measures) and doesn’t stumble into boredom like some of their earlier work definitely has. The song “Cruel Road” is an excellent example of how they are able to work with the basic toolkit of doom metal and still produce a composition that moves in various directions and conjures different atmospheres of gloom throughout itself. The title track accomplishes a similar feat, but channels a great sorrowful melancholy more than the previous song’s brooding intimidation. And the song “Dancing in Madness” finds Pallbearer taking on the long-song challenge and performing more skillfully than they have in the past by inviting along some yet unheard ambient elements to dirge with them and give their slow march an eerie fog to pass through that is more genuinely unsettling than it was in their past work, but also weaving together a masterful web of musical progression all throughout and making it an actually worthwhile listen the entire way through. The highlight of the album, for sure, is the closing song, the aptly titled “A Plea for Understanding” based on the pleading and unexpectedly inspiring catharsis it provides. The instrumentation is significantly of a lighter type of atmosphere, not really less metal, but just at a higher altitude where the sun actually begins to peak through the album’s previous musical storm clouds. The vocals on the song, especially near and during its climax, are tremendous and sound as though they wouldn’t even have been possible on Foundations of Burden. Pallbearer, at the end of the road of this record’s dirge, turn up the brightness as though the entire album has indeed been the carriage of a heavy coffin along a dark and colorless journey too painful and to express entirely until the time to let go finally comes here, and the release of all that pain in such a noble and freeing way produces the most truly beautiful thing I have ever heard a band do with doom metal.

While Pallbearer has branched out and strengthened their arsenal, this record is still undeniably doom metal at its core and an excellent addition to the genre’s catalog. This is without a doubt, one of my favorite albums of the year so far and one that has greatly revitalized Pallbearer and carried them to a new plateau of doom metal greatness (and timely so as well, rather than seeing them coast through 3 or 4 more Sorrow and Extinctions before buckling down and making the effort to better themselves). At least if they do stick to this level of ambition and this format on a plateau of future albums, it will still be a very high plateau and definitely one that would carve their mark into metal history.