Warthur Heartless by Pallbearer feels like a bit of a gear change for the band. As you can tell just by comparing its tasteful, understated cover art with the phantasmagoria that decorated their previous two albums, this album represents a major aesthetic shift for them. Largely emerging from the shadow of the 1970s and the more traditionally doomy aspects of their sound, here they play a more modern style of melodic doom metal which feels like it could potentially have a bit more mass appeal than the apocalyptic stylings of their early work.

Whereas Pallbearer previously sounded like the world was ending, here they sound like their hearts are breaking; doom and gloom is still the name of the game, but the stakes and the tone are different. It's interesting, but I'm not sure how much more I'd want of this particular incarnation of the band, and it feels like this may be remembered in future as a transitional album for the band. I just hope what they transition into is as promising as their earlier traditional doom works.

Kev Rowland

This is the third album from the American doomsters, and they certainly have a very different approach to the genre than what I am used to hearing. Yes, the riffs are often like leaden slabs, but Brett Campbell is a singer who is extremely confident in his abilities and is both powerful and melodic. No gruff spoken or strange singing for him, just right down the middle vocals that would be suited to any good mainstream band. They aren’t afraid to bring in musical elements from other genres, yet always tie them back to doom, so the result is something that is incredibly easy to listen to while at the same time also being quite unusual. Having played the album quite a few times I’m still a little at a loss as to how to describe it, just because it is bringing together all these influences and making them work in a doom setting.

The production is superb, and it doesn’t matter of guitars are being gently picked as at the beginning of “Lie Of Survival”, or crunched as they are later in the same song, it is all mixed to perfection (step forward Joe Barresi from Tool, Queens of the Stone Age and others). Vocalist/guitarist Brett and bassist/secondary vocalist Joseph D. Rowland also provide synthesisers when the time is right, and the use of a wide musical palette also adds to the overall feel of the album. While not essential, this is well worth hearing, and it will be interesting to see what direction they move into next.

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.