Pallbearer- Mind Burns Alive

Pallbearer in Perspective

If there is one thing us metal heads love, it’s trying to classify music we love into genres.  Sometimes, genre specification serves us as a means of classification; as if we have our own Dewey Decimal System in which we are the librarians, slotting bands into the neat pull out drawers, directing others where we can find the Thrash section, the Doom section, the Death and the Black.  It is handy when we know what we want and we want to delve deeper into a niche interest; sometimes for discovery, sometimes for understanding history.

In other ways, genre specification acts like a means to trace hereditary traits in a family tree; a way to understand the hereditary traces of bands from the origins to the modern. 

Other times, genre classification is a language.  When we go to a show and meet with friends, or are out and about talking to new people, understanding the language of genres helps us communicate our tastes and passions as we describe what we are listening to.  When we describe a band as being in a particular genre, the person we are communicating with immediately understands the basic underpinnings of their music.  In this case, these descriptive tags perform the function of adjectives in this particular language. 

As a language, metal often appears germanic in its modular structure; allowing us to take the functions of these terms and make completely new genres that are completely understood by “metalophones” purely by the construction of the genre name. 

It is not uncommon for us metalheads to poke fun at ourselves for manufacturing genres like putting together lego blocks; even bands themselves can get carried away by describing themselves as the seminal progenitors of “blackened-post-gaze-core” or something equally ridiculous. 

It is odd then, that the type of music most known for its extensive classification is also the one most known for it’s rebellion against order, and as such that it is no surprise that as soon as an order is identified, a plethora of bands arrives to break it.

So, as many genres as there are, there are as many bands that come along to transcend them, making classification difficult until language can evolve to accommodate them.  Rarely, an album comes along that is unclassifiable, and doubt exists that language can ever come to terms with that simple fact.

Mind Burns Alive is one of those albums

Pallbearer – Mind Burns Alive

Pallbearer is one of those bands that never really fit neatly into any given niche anyway.  When Sorrow and Extinction was released in 2012, it was obvious that it was doom metal, with long slow meandering compositions, but other than that, I can’t really identify what other bands really sound like them, other than The Lunar Maria from Adrift for Days.

Stylistically, Pallbearer has simultaneously kept very consistent lyrical themes and musical motifs; occasional chugs with harmonized guitar parts paired with strained desperate high vocals among them. 

Mind Burns Alive is different.  While the heavy parts are undeniably Pallbearer, there is a particular focus on dynamics as there are more clean sections here than we have seen on previous records.  It is in these sections where a different kind of heaviness resides.  These clean and quiet sections lure the listener into quiet contemplation before being brought home into the warm comfort of the familiar distorted parts. 

Additionally, these clean sections become crossroads for each of the songs, allowing the composition to leverage these dynamics to go into different directions when the heavy parts return.  They allow Brett Campbell to explore and expand his approach to the vocals; many of the strained high notes are now sung with relaxed comfort, and are a pleasure to sing along with, even without knowing the lyrics. 

The first single, and opening track Where The Light Fades sets the scene for these new musical motifs; and when this song was released, I asked myself if Pallbearer was going into a totally new direction, as this track solely noticeably does not have the hallmark traits of previous albums. 

The track following it, Mind Burns Alive immediately answers this question by opening with a riff that is undeniably tied to their signature sound.  Even then, a couple minutes into the song is a return to this new clean sound that prominently features Brett’s exploration in vocal styles in the alternating clean verses and distorted choruses.  The vocals and lyrical structure on this song are so approachable, it is impossible to resist singing along by the time you get to the second chorus. 

The song Signals starts out reminiscent of 40 Watt Sun, especially their latest release, Perfect Light.  This stripped bare intro builds beautifully into heavily layered guitars that are reminiscent of the first album, Sorrow and Extinction, but with the advantage of the years of growth that have happened in the band since 2012.  This song starts quiet and keeps growing with more layers and volume, building into a rousing crescendo before suddenly ending. 

Endless Place again breaks up the heavily distorted ending of the previous track with another clean section; this does not last long as instead of slowly building into heaviness like previous tracks, this song jumps right into it one minute in.  This track feels more reminiscent of the Heartless era of the band, again featuring harmonized guitar leads and meandering riffs that wander under the soaring vocals.  This track is typical Pallbearer, groovy and melodic until……wait, what is that?  A saxaphone?!?!?!  Again, the clean sections offer a crossroads for the band to take a left turn and show off some really creative and unique songwriting; here the saxaphone provided by Norman Williamson adds a completely unexpected and unique texture that is simultaneously right at home within the song, before pushing into a heavy climax. 

Daybreak once again gives us a reprieve from the heavy distortion by starting with another quiet and clean intro; imagine you are alone in a cheap motel room with an old beat up guitar strumming and drinking away your feelings on a lonely gray day.  Textures slowly come in and fill out the sound as if the camera pulls back to reveal a stage and a full band ready to bring the hammer down with volume, distortion and a complex interplay of bass and guitars, solidifying the feeling of loneliness in a much larger space. 

All of this interplay between musical dynamics brings us to the finale, With Disease.  Here, the musical stew is coming to a boil.  Even the quieter sections have a sense of urgency as the song builds.  Everything speaks to a mental struggle pushing for a sense of release. Harmonized guitars increase in dissonance before fading into the distance for a moment of contemplation; voices swirl in reverb as if bubbling up from my own subconscious building stress and anxiety until finally, an eruption brings us to the promised land; the subconscious voice must escape and transform into a scream into the void.  Everything for the last hour has built up into this moment, and finally all the sadness, loneliness and despair is externally expressed and released.  Being held down in my own psyche for so long, the externalized scream allows me to come up for air and continue being human.

For this last 51 minutes, language has failed me.  I can no longer classify what is essentially the personification of loneliness and anxiety brought to life by music.  It is still doom metal, but whatever else it may be escapes me until the language of metal can once again evolve to capture this new, beautiful beast.

-Joe Turmes

https://linktr.ee/cleanandsoberstoner