“We’re gonna try to get this to collapse tonight,” Pallbearer singer-guitarist Brett Campbell said as he gestured to the ceiling of a cave that was packed full of people in Pelham, TN this past weekend. We all knew it was a distinct possibility.
The Caverns is a unique venue, a massive subterranean cavity which plays host to a wide range of music and which features dripping ceilings, beautifully craggy formations, and humidity that rivals a Delta swamp. The cool breeze that initially greets you as you head deeper into its maw is a false friend. Trust me – it gets hot in there. It’s also one of my favorite places to listen to music. There’s something about the mixing of primeval natural architecture and visceral sound that draws out a profound physical reaction, and the musical vortex of Pallbearer and Blood Incantation did not disappoint.
Pallbearer took the stage a few minutes before 8:00 pm and began their sludgy, funereal excavations. The music felt like a dense and gooey liquid slowly filling your body, an inevitable submission to the sounds in this environment. They opened with “Silver Wings” from 2020’s Forgotten Days, and it promptly set the stage for what was a series of tidal motions, inescapable waves that tossed you in all directions without mercy. The ceiling didn’t collapse, but we were shaken and left breathless, their work a weight pressing in from all sides. And yet, conversely, there was also freedom in their longform passages, moments marked by ascendent rhythms left to spiral skyward (I mean, as far as they’d get in the cave anyway), brilliant riffs that extended for miles and dealt in brutal beatifics.
They played for almost an hour, further touching upon tracks from Foundations of Burden, Heartless, Mind Burns Alive, and Sorrow and Extinction, offering a fairly comprehensive trip through their discography. The sounds echoed from each wall and rattled most major internal organs. The sea of bodies became a lumbering beast, moving in unison as each goopy riff and thunderous resolution came barreling out from the stage, a torrential offering of pummeling amplitude and density. The melodies lurched and stomped around, on occasion evincing the odd bit of southern rock theatricality and thrash temperament. They were evoking the wandering spirits of their influences, the ghosts that have always inhabited these sounds – and in this setting, it was especially thrilling.
Once Pallbearer finished their set, it took a long time for Blood Incantation to start – so long, in fact, that the crowd was beginning to become impatient (maybe that was just me). But eventually, surrounded by two towering obelisks onstage, they took their place and began their sorcerous metal mayhem. They began with “The Stargate [Tablet I]” and ran through the entire length of their 2024 album, Absolute Elsewhere. I knew that translating this fearsome collection of songs in a live setting would be no easy feat, but the band pulled it without missing a beat. The bass was particularly prominent, thumping and slithering like some ancient serpent in that primordial space.
Between the elaborate twin narratives of “The Stargate” and “The Message”, the stage was a blistering inferno of pummeling percussion and searing guitar apocalypticism. Singer Paul Riedl growled and screamed at the abyss, and the abyss slowly backed away. Isaac Faulk – who was celebrating his birthday – delivered a sustained war cry through his drums while Morris Kolontyrsky and Jeff Barrett offered up twinned assaults of guitar and bass. It was loud and seemed as attuned to the works of H.P. Lovecraft as it was to the music of Dream Theater or Tangerine Dream. Through a set of cosmically twisted metal and synth experimentation, the evening reinforced their position as one of metal’s preeminent re-interpreters.
After completing the Absolute Elsewhere experience in full, they turned and lurched into “The Giza Power Plant”, a prog-metal stunner that captured the ferocity and dynamism of their studio recordings. Afterward, they ventured into “The Vth Tablet (Of Enuma Elis)”, a throwback of sorts to the noodling eccentricities of classic thrash and the gargantuan mass which its influences shifted without much resistance. We all moved in unison as each crushing riff was extended and consumed, an offering to whatever intangible spirits might have been lurking the craggy shadows of the cave.
Showcasing their love of surprising musical divergences, the band then tore through the live debut of “Meticulous Soul Devourment”, a curious behemoth taken from their debut album, Starspawn. It was a change of pace that worked well in the voluminous space we all occupied, a wall of eclectic sounds that pushed back against our bodies and forced us to adapt to its specialized frequencies. They closed out the night with “Obliquity of the Ecliptic”, a chaotic and arresting bit of prog metal goodness. It allowed the band to swing between a full-bore assault and something approximating inquisitiveness, giving them room to expand their sonic palette while still adhering to the searing intensity which provides the dominant propulsion for their music.
It was an evening of diabolical prog-metal, thrash, and melodic rock sacrifices – so, all in all, a successful Blood Incantation show.
