Arkansas may not be the first place you would associate with heavy metal but Pallbearer might just make all of that change. Their debut album Sorrow And Extinction is making waves throughout the music world for being a breath of fresh air in the musty world of plodding doom-centric metal. The album consists of five long passages; no track is under eight minutes and each is an epic ballad in its own right. The gentle acoustic intro to “Foreigner” (which is thankfully a lot better than the band Foreigner) teases the arrival of the electric guitars. Opening your debut album with a twelve-and-a-half-minute metallic slog might seem a little unfriendly but Pallbearer start out the way they intend to finish: heavy as hell. Some songs devolve into long sub-Sabbath grind fests (“Devoid of Redemption” in particular) but the fact that they can return from these passages to tunefulness is all a part of Pallbearer’s glum charm. See how the sweet vocal harmonies on “The Legend” drag you back out of the mire. Uplifting doom metal? Has the world gone mad! Ok, so it isn’t uplifting in a traditional pop music kinda way but every time they pull out of a tailspin into darkness the melodic levity is palpable. Never fear, bludgeoning heaviness is never far away – at the end of the day they are still all about the heavy fucking metal. The album closes on the gothic “Given To The Grave”, an almighty ten minute jaunt that ends proceedings on a high note. Sorrow And Extinction is a strongly realized debut album from this quartet from Little Rock.
Rating: B+
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