LISTEN TO PALLBEARER’S SORROW AND EXTINCTION, SEE IF YOUR FACE GETS F*CKED OFF
Sorrow and Extinction, the new album from Pallbearer, has been arrives next week with a lot of hype — some of it even generated right here on MetalSucks, where our own Grim Kim promised that the album would fuck your face off. I didn’t even hear it for the first time until this past weekend, when I finally got to give it two spins. Now NPR is streaming the full thing.
Honestly, it took me a few listens to get into Sorrow and Extinction. I got over it pretty quickly the first time I threw it on. But the band really had the odds against them from the moment I hit “play”: only once in awhile does a doom outfit I actually think are interesting come along (Salome, Batillus). Also, Pallbearer definitely have kind of a retro thing once in awhile (Brett Campbell’s vocal style in particular), and it’s equally rare that I get into a modern band that sounds as though maybe they just stepped out of time machine (Ghost, Havok). So maybe I wasn’t the target audience for Sorrow and Extinction to begin with.
But I did immediately find Sorrow and Extinction to be catchy, and for some reason, I always want to understand “what the big deal is,” so to speak. So I listened to it again. Now I’m glad I did: Sorrow and Extinction has, indeed, neither gently nor romantically made love to my mouth. It is most certainly retro-y doom metal, but I actually don’t find it dreary or boring –it’s too catchy, has got too much groove, and Brett Campbell’s vocals are anguished but not scary (or pseudo-scary or whatever). And Pallbearer don’t peacock like other doom bands do. (“We can play this slow, and be this frightening, and no this feedback is the song, and hey where ya going I wasn’t done ye–“)
So, yeah. Good stuff. Thanks, Kim!
ANYWAY, as always, I invite you to listen to the record yourself and make up your own damned mind and then share that damned mind with your fellow internet metal dorks in the comments section below. Are you laying in bed, smoking a cigarette, looking down on the floor at the sweaty, quivering mess that was, until recently, your face? Or does your face feel like it would rather fake a headache than sleep with Pallbearer again?
Sorrow and Extinction comes out February 21 on Profound Lore.
-AR
