I guess it’s mostly a question of expectations. I i PallbearerI’ll tell you the truth, it’s not like I followed them assiduously. “But how, you?”. Well, yes, but you know that in music you don’t always follow linear, safe paths. In short, even if songs like Worlds Apart I can listen to them on repeat. Although, seen live, the Arkansas four is an absolutely remarkable experience. It was actually in person that I became aware of their relevance, turgid power and opaque, sad emotions. Yet I still didn’t have them at the top of my listening list. I wonder why. Perhaps because certain doom, this kind of doom, is a bit of a story in itself. The son of the Warnings. It is certainly not a flashy, gothic, macabre, epic, nostalgic form. In short, that kind of strong emotions, yes, but also rather aesthetic ones. Sometimes I almost thought it was Alone like a sludge mixed with a bit of prog. It’s not stuff that I initially thought I would be very interested in. I was wrong anyway, of course.
But also the Barg, reviewing the latest album, it’s not that he really enticed me, calling it limp. Now, putting it into context, the Barg is someone who listens to Red House Painters choking the tears with the pillow, so when he uses the word limp it doesn’t mean that I give him the same meaning as the man in the street. And in fact that wasn’t a negative opinion, that of the Barg, on the contrary he was taken aback. Forgotten Days, taken now, I think it’s really beautiful. Well, now, listen to this: Mind Burns Alive, this year’s album, is even softer than the previous one. But now you are wrong, you who are already moving on, if you have drawn drastic conclusions from it. Because there is fly and fly, and this one is magnificent. In practice, to make a long story short, returning to the Barg discussion and potentially closing the discussion here, it is as if the Pallbearers had chosen what to do and not remain suspended between two mode (heavy and romantic sadness), now fully embracing the more desperate of the two. With lighter sound tones, but very heavy emotions. So no, it’s not a record soft, or an indie record, it was just time to turn the amps down a little. Not much, eh. Because the silence, the space between the notes, sometimes has a gravity that everything you can try to insert between the notes, to try to weigh everything down, often doesn’t have. Turns of phrase, mine, to essentially say that you absolutely must not underestimate this album, made of pain from start to finish.
Let’s say that at least the entire first part of the album is phenomenal. Of course, perhaps you too must have a reason to complain about how things are going. If everything is going well for you, all that’s left is a gentle attack Where the Light Fades does not have the effect that (a random person) has on myself. Synth, big guitars are not heard for entire minutes, in fact, in reality they don’t arrive at all, except at the very end and only after the emotional peak has been reached due to stupendous stratifications of vocal lines, electric and non-electric arpeggios. A fresco, a desperate fresco. Then comes the song that gives the album its title and has a more traditional cut. He starts with the riffon, yes. Then the verse is something else. Post rock. The American one, the 90s one. The one that smells of asphalt strips, which cut through woods and run alongside deserted car parks, abandoned swimming pools, petrol stations. Arkansas, as I imagine it. But a truly complete melody, that of the chorus, allows us not to start using the word inappropriately again progressive. While at a certain point a riff, a variation, brings to mind that other dirty word that it is southern. The heart murmur makes him come the next time, however, Signals. Be careful, you wouldn’t really call it a metal piece for a long time. You might confuse some friends, those friends who don’t usually share your tastes and go to see each other at festivals right. Because it takes from the source, again, the American post rock of the 90s, melodic and emotional modalities that certain modern indie artists (and even some puppets) have taken up in recent years. Then, luckily, to get me out of the embarrassment, the big guitars arrive here too (not really “oni-oni“). But then there’s a point, after the second chorus, where the situation really takes a turn too emotional, with that guitar that keeps time in suspense. Here you are, emo is the right word. Again, I’m not talking about kids with piercings and eyeliner. I still always talk about that America and that period, the late 1990s, early 2000s… No, perhaps it’s time for me to stop here, you wouldn’t investigate anyway. However emo-doom it fits as a definitionFor Signals, even if Ciccio would never allow me to use it. Who knows, maybe one day someone will say that the first time emo-doom was talked about was for a review on Metal Skunk. What bullshit. However Signals it’s superb. Really, believe me. It makes you want to listen to it while you stifle your tears with a pillow.
And to say that you wouldn’t mistake Brett Campbell for Giacomo Leopardi
There was that Australian guy I met in the summer at Brutal Assault, as long as I went there. Friend of friends. Tall, tattooed, tanned, long-haired, homeless, tattooed, eyes like ice, one and a half Madonnas tall. He claimed that live Pallbearers gave him an erection. No kidding. When they started playing, at Metal Gate, I had my eyes closed to catch all the sound in the center of my forehead, without distractions. At a certain point, however, I open my eyes, I’m in the middle of the group and there’s the Australian looking at me, the one who shortly before had described to me the effect the Pallbearers had on him. Well, he smiles, lewdly, and with his arm mimics the erection. I laugh. It’s a joke. But even in the old Pallbearers (absurd in person) I don’t know what testosterone there was. We cry here, a lot. Males cry too, you know, we’re not retrograde, but maybe they don’t get excited contextually. If they do, well, good for them. Australian friend: to me Mind Burns Alive it’s like a lot. A voracious, soothing listen. Why you don’t always need to be hard onIndeed, sometimes it’s better to just keep to your own business, because if you don’t smile then people will look at you badly. In short, there is a need to keep to one’s own business without telling oneself that things make sense. Well, perfect, there is an emo-doom album that I absolutely have to recommend for those moments. AND Mind Burns Alive, by Pallbearer, which starts off in a phenomenal way, with three songs out of six (side A?) phenomenal and the rest still beautiful-beautiful, perhaps a little less beautiful, otherwise maybe it was a masterpiece or almost. Or maybe it’s just me listening Signals And Where The Light Fades for days. Compulsively. (Lorenzo Centini)
