Pallbearer brought summer doom to the RecordBar

June 30, 2023

Nick Spacek,

Pallbearer. // photo by Nick Spacek

Pallbearer
with Low Forest and Drfiter
RecordBar
Wednesday, June 28

There are two types of weather best suited for doom metal: the frozen depths of winter and the oppressive heat of summer. The gloom of the lyrical content fits the cold perfectly and the slow churn of the music suits not wanting to do much more than nod your head in the sweltering temperatures. Thus, it was unsurprisng that there was a packed house for Arkansas’ Pallbearer at RecordBar on Wednesday night.

Also — and let’s be honest here — it’d been nearly four years since the band last came through, and they’ve been playing new songs from their next album on their recent shows, which might have something more to do with it. Those two new songs, “Signals” and “Endless Place,” find the band working in a mode which sees them mixing the newer directions they’ve explored on Forgotten Days with the crushing directness of Foundations of Burden.

Also, when last Pallbearer came through, their musical performance was stellar, as always, but the quartet seemed really withdrawn in terms of energy and stage presence, but at the RecordBar, the band seemed as energetic and upbeat as a doom act can be. It was as though these new songs have reinvigorated them, and by the time the last bit of feedback from the end of “Worlds Apart” had quieted down, so was the audience.

Kansas City’s Low Forest played their second show on Wednesday night, and while their post-punk space rock seemed odd when sandwiched between the crushing, end-of-the-world sounds of Lawrence’s Drifter and Pallbearer’s epic doom, the band held the crowd’s attention and built up energy and confidence over the course of their set.

Drifter’s songs always manage to walk the edge between confrontational and nihilistically withdrawn, thanks to the long instrumental spaces between Dean Edington’s vocal growls, but this might’ve been the tightest, most focused set I’ve yet seen from the trio. There’s something in the way Drifter’s music punches you physically which makes you feel as though this might be the end, but you can’t look away.

All photos by Nick Spacek

Pallbearer