Doom is a broad category, one of those descriptors that needs an extra word like "stoner," "funeral," "sludge," "death," or "drone" to help narrow things down a little. It can bring to mind the slower, low-tuned psychedelic metal of post-Sabbath American groups like Saint Vitus, Trouble, and Pentagram along with Sweden's Candlemass, UK act Cathedral, and descendants who are crustier (YOB, Asunder), more flatlining (Sunn O)))), seemingly suicidal (Loss), and exceedingly smoked-up (Sleep). Then come the backward-glancing modern traditionalists like weathered North Carolina crew Hour of 13, Rhode Island upstarts Pilgrim, and now, even more gloriously, Pallbearer.
The Little Rock, Ark., quartet sounds much older than its years on its fantastic debut LP, Sorrow and Extinction. The band released a three-song demo in 2010, but reach greater heights here, due to both sharper songwriting and better production. Really, even though they end their Sorrow thank-you list with a blushing "and, of course, Black Sabbath," they go much deeper than that. You could throw in Saint Vitus and early Candlemass (1986's Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, especially), but it almost makes more sense to reference post-Sleep duo Om for the way each song insistently, specifically reaches for a focused transcendence. That said, there's more variation and catharsis here, despite the occasional Mick Barr/all-nighter riffing. It seems like a simple formula, and maybe it is, but the execution's flawless. It also shifts subtly and continually: They mix in psychedelia, 1970s prog melodies, clean vocal harmonies, and ambient keyboards without sacrificing a certain smoked-up genre purity.
We get five songs in just under 50 minutes, each mountain of slow, majestic chords bleeding into one glorious cathedral of riffs and soaring vocals. Here is where their insistence on an overall flow pays off. The longest and best piece is the scene-setting opener, "Foreigner". It starts with tentative, pretty nylon-stringed acoustic guitars that, after two minutes, are joined by carefully played, delicate drums until everything crashes with a huge distorted crescendo. The riffs are beautiful and memorable, somehow both gentle and crushing, but the real key here is vocalist (and guitarist) Brett Campbell, who I first heard via his soaring (and surprising) guest spot on Loss' beautifully bleak 2011 collection, Despond, an album that more usually features a guttural vocal gargle.
That contrast is an essential aspect of the band, which is why when we posted an "An Offering of Grief", I mentioned the Pallbearer featured "[a] vocalist who sings." Campbell has been described as a young Ozzy Osbourne, and that influence is certainly there, but imagine if a young Ozzy had the ability to transform into Geddy Lee. This is music that would be interesting as instrumentals-- the guitars are that good-- but when you add a singer who can match that kind of dynamic surge, it goes somewhere else entirely. The songs have room to be extra patient in part because Pallbearer possess this weapon. On "Given to the Grave", for instance, we get more than five minutes of the acoustic strumming before the crunch and an ever-escalating Campbell. There's no need to rush when the climaxes are that huge, and with his voice, there's always one new wrinkle on the horizon.
The clean, anthemic feel is reminiscent of 40 Watt Sun's 2011 LP, The Inside Room. That band features vocalist and guitarist Patrick Walker of the 1990s UK doom group Warning taking five songs to just about 50 minutes, but with a more obviously introspective feel than we have here-- The Inside Room's an apt title-- with moments that feel a bit like slowcore heroes Codeine. Sorrow and Extinction isn't first-person in that way, and it's more clearly metal: This is sweeping, outdoor, mountaintop music. The lyrics have a mannered, sword-and-sorcery feel, situating death and sadness in towers, pyres, journeys, and the ancients; but even if you don't follow along with what the songs "mean," Campbell has one of those deliveries that brings shivers regardless of what he's singing.
That's the other thing that sets Pallbearer apart: As "down" and death-focused as the words and band name might be, this is uplifting stuff. (When the overlapping solos and subtle, arcing synth haze of "Given to the Grave" bring Sorrow and Extinction to an ecstatic end, you'll be thinking more about life than death, believe me.) Ultimately, it feels like Pallbearer have created their own version of a traditional jazz funeral march, or like they went ahead and invented some sort of "celebratory doom." Whatever you want to call it, the record's a triumph.
