PALLBEARER — Heartless (review)

PALLBEARER — Heartless album cover Album · 2017 · Doom Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Nightfly
Pallbearer’s particular brand of doom is relatively speaking an easy listen. The riffs aren’t heavily drenched in fuzz a la Electric Wizard or overlaid with growl vocals like Evoken or Ahab for example. Their riffs can be crushingly heavy but they also inject plenty of melody making them a band that could appeal to more traditional metal and hard rock fans. If those observations were true with 2014’s excellent Foundations Of Burden then with Heartless they’ve even taken it a step further towards more mainstream territory.

Now don’t get me wrong, Pallbearer can still be pretty heavy and perhaps using the word mainstream might be a bit misleading, but you can probably get my drift. There are moments on here though where they are positively mellow like the eight minute Lie Of Survival where they virtually leave doom behind. Dancing In Madness starts off similarly but over its twelve minutes has time to kick in and enter heavier territory. Pallbearer still have plenty of great riffs though and alongside them the more melodic and mellower passages work well making Heartless a very mature piece of work. The vocals are also still on the melodic side and have improved with occasional harmonies thrown in which work well. The longer songs not surprisingly have some welcome diversions and twists to keep things interesting, even injecting some prog elements. Album closer A Plea For Understanding shows the greatest use of dynamics of all with some particularly melodic sections. Cruel Road whilst one of the shorter songs still packs a lot in to its seven minutes with some particularly captivating riffing. Followed by the slightly more upbeat title track they make the best side of the album on my beautifully packaged double vinyl version. The production is excellent – heavy and organic with a particularly open drum sound, perfect for this sort of stuff.

Whilst Heartless is a band showing growth for which they should be applauded I think I still slightly prefer the heavier Foundations Of Burden. Their debut Sorrow And Extinction I’m less familiar with and haven’t heard in some time so I won’t do any comparisons there. Nevertheless, Heartless is still a very good doom metal album that most Pallbearer fans should be more than happy with.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Hin helga kvöl Atmospheric Sludge Metal
SÓLSTAFIR
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Cycles of Suffering Black Metal
BURIAL OATH
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Suns of Perdition - Chapter IV: To Shadow Zion Black Metal
PANZERFAUST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Facilis Descensus Averno Death Metal
SAEVUS FINIS
Buy this album from MMA partners
Merciless Crossover Thrash
BODY COUNT
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

DAWN OF REVENGE - Sanctuary [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - Farewell [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - Curtain of Death - [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - Vengeance [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - I Need You [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed