Pallbearer

It’s July 4th! Doesn’t feel right to celebrate anything, though.

Fugees, “Ready or Not”

This album was really huge, driven by a rapturous critical reception (and, of course, some seriously bangin’ singles). It represents a little bit of a path not taken for hip-hop at large, though, as the Bad Boy Records era was really taking over around this time, which didn’t leave a lot of commercial space for other approaches. That it didn’t generate a lot of followers is no comment on the quality, of course, as it remains a classic.

2Pac, “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted”

All Eyez On Me represented 2Pac’s commercial peak, with the double-album selling tons of copies driven by “California Love”. Of course, it would be the last album he would make while alive, so we don’t know what he would have done after moving on from G-funk. If he’d been alive, there would have actually been many fewer 2Pac records, as I think he would have just moved on to acting and not much music would have been released. Instead, essentially every noise he ever made on tape would eventually get released.

Pallbearer, “Over & Over”

This song comes from the 2016 single Fear & Fury, which was released after their breakthrough record, Foundations of Burden. It was a wise piece of striking while the iron is hot. Pallbearer plays doom metal, heavy and reliant on plodding tempos, and managed to kind of crossover by being fairly accessible due to the clean vocals. This stuff is pretty good, and I like it in the right mood, and Pallbearer does it as well as anybody does.

New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble, “Haitian Fight Song”

This version of the great Charles Mingus song is actually the version that got me to go look up Mingus and learn more about him and buy a bunch of his records. It’s such a great song.

Pallbearer, “Atlantis”

This is the a-side from the Pallbearer single from 2019 on Sub Pop. Thanks to their 2017 record, Foundations of Burden, breaking free from the metal press and getting broader attention, Pallbearer have become the standard bearers of doom metal. But there are certainly times that Pallbearer doesn’t sound like doom metal so much as just plain ol’ heavy metal. Which is totally fine! They sound good, and there’s nothing wrong with just heavy metal.