SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: PALLBEARER – MIND BURNS ALIVE

PALLBEARER
MIND BURNS ALIVE
NUCLEAR BLAST

Pallbearer has been a leading force in creating some of the most captivating progressive doom-metal experiences since 2010. With a slow-boiling, melancholic melodicism and doom-tinged guitar riffs, Pallbearer has remained one of the most nostalgic yet refreshing acts within the genre. While Heartless and Forgotten Days took the band to new and expansive progressive heights, their latest release, Mind Burns Alive, expands their potent metal soundscapes and sense of lyrical depth to new and exciting territory within their songwriting.

A decent amount of time has passed since the emotional release of Forgotten Days, and now the progressive metal favorites are exploring a slightly different creative direction with the gritty and deeply cinematic release, Mind Burns Alive. With a gorgeous display of musical self-analysis and adventurous use of grungy melodicism and technically superb progressive elements, Pallbearer takes a step away from the high-energy grooves of their last release Forgotten Days and aims for a more intimate and subtly impactful approach this time around. Beyond its full-bodied, stripped-back guitar feedback and intuitive hooks, lies an album loaded with vulnerable and poetic intensity that doesn’t let up till the record is finished. 

The first track, “Where The Light Fades”, sets the tone for the album with its restrained instrumentals and vocals, which evolve beautifully throughout the rest of the record. Featuring melodic guitar echoes that create a sense of loneliness and emotional suffocation, Pallbearer takes listeners on a journey with titanic reverbs and dissonant, pained vocal play. These first experiences pave the way for more spine-tingling musical escalation and impassioned releases that appear later in the record.

Pallbearer continues to venture and further explore their musical dynamism with other sonically colorful moments like, “Mind Burns Alive” and the highlight and deeply immersive juncture, “Signals”. A gorgeous moment filled with thick walls of massive distortion and emotive vocals; Pallbearer displays a sense of raw heaviness that is beautifully represented not only by its layers of the instrumental atmosphere but the sentimental lyrical weight that circumvents these experiences. 

Pallbearer extends their panoramic view of isolation and angst with “Endless Place”. One of the most instrumentally loaded experiences on the record, Pallbearer’s use of distortion is further evolved by its enveloping atmosphere and renitent acoustics and emotional synths that cascade into the waves of disjointed rhythms that cement its place as one of the band’s most defining moments on the album.

Pallbearer’s skillful use of progressive metal and melody has been consistently evident in each of their experiences so far. Building on the atmospheric world they have created for Mind Burns Alive, the band adds more depth to their progressive doom soundscape with breathtaking saxophone sections as it impressively transitions into a sea of powerful guitar riffs before moving into the more stripped-down moment, “Daybreaker”.   

Some of the most meditative and evocative moments on Mind Burns Alive, “Daybreaker” and “With Disease” show five years of untapped creative potential that has gone into such a poignant and reflective experience. Haunting and unsettling, both instrumentally and lyrically convey a deep story of loneliness, acceptance, and emotional liberation before coming to a close. 

Mind Burns Alive tells a delicate and cinematic story of the ominous despair of a world on the brink of self-destruction and the emotional impact on those who bear the brunt of that pain every day. “Pallbearer” is a heartfelt journey of isolation, trauma, and mental collapse, finding beauty in the disquieting feelings of penance and the aching reality of wanting to escape such burdens.

While Mind Burns Alive took some time to finally emerge from the clutches of various setbacks and two aborted attempts, what survives is one of the best concept records the band has recorded currently.  

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