Opinion: Thou & Emma Ruth Rundle have beaten Pallbearer & Randall Dunn in the battle of the doom collaborations

I rarely talk about production in much detail when I review albums, mostly because I believe it can receive far too much focus in heavy music commentary. For once though I am going to comment on production, so please forgive my lack of expertise in the subject, my comments come from the position of a disappointed listener not an offended sound engineer.

This last week saw the release of two of the most anticipated doom albums of the year: Pallbearer's fourth full length album Forgotten Days and Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou's collaboration album May Our Chambers Be Full. Being a big fan of all the artists involved, and with a three hour plane journey to fill last Friday, these have been my most listened to albums of the last week. One of them has had far more playing time than the other though, and unfortunately it isn't the one from my seventh greatest doom band.

Although rarely touted as a collaboration, I always get excited to see a big name band work with a new producer with a distinct sonic trademark, often one that goes into territory unfamiliar to that band. I can trace this all the way back to when Rolo Tomassi, still in their excitable mathcore phase, produced their breakthrough 2010 album Cosmology with Diplo back when he was at the forefront of dance-pop experimentalism and had never recorded a full band before, let alone one as chaotic and unique as Rolo Tomassi. Sunn 0))) recently working with Steve Albini, the master of live recorded raw analogue tape albums, was a delight and whilst Life Metal might not have been the most diverse Sunn 0))) album it was the best they have created in terms of pure sound and tone. Zeal & Ardor's new EP has been mixed by Will Putney, best known for his deathcore production, and it sounds absolutely awesome; and Swedish d-beat legends Disfear created a stunning record when they crossed the European/American hardcore divide to work with Kurt Ballou on their 2008 record Live The Storm.

Sometimes though these collaborations that sound so exciting on paper don't work out so well in practice, and often it's the mixing which becomes the focal point. The last Baroness album Gold & Grey is a good example, a superbly written album whose sound was rightly criticised. Baroness's other worldly melodic sludge had already sounded great in the hands of Dave Fridmann, a maestro producer of psychedelic indie rock (Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, MGMT among others) who had produced their fantastic previous album Purple. Yet as many will attest the mix of the album was well off the mark and it left a big black mark on an otherwise wonderful record. One can't lay blame solely at Fridmann for this, a band as experienced as Baroness have to take responsibility for their mixing too, but it shows that sometimes these collaborations can go wrong.

So when it was revealed that Pallbearer would be working with Randall Dunn I was very excited at the prospect of this collaboration. Dunn's production style is a hybrid of analogue and digital methods, and the dense layers he could create always enhanced the atmosphere of the music, whether it was drone, black metal, doom or avant-garde dark folk. He has worked for many years with Wolves In The Throne Room, Sunn 0))), Earth, Boris, Marissa Nadler, Kayo Dot and Black Mountain to name just a few, and I was hoping that this would translate into a deeper and even more atmospheric sound for Pallbearer.

When Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou announced their collaborative album there was a collective nerdgasm amongst the underground doom fandom. Thou's progressive and at times rather experimental take on sludge has made them one of the most lauded bands in the scene. Emma Ruth Rundle's solo work is an utterly unique take on post-rock, folk and ambient styles, but her work in Marriages has made her a highly regarded artist by those in the heavy music scene with a penchant for more leftfield artistic output. Considering Thou have composed some of their best work when bringing in clean vocals (often courtesy of member KC Stafford) and softer textures to their sound, it seemed like these two could produce something quite fantastic together.

For Pallbearer, unfortunately something hasn't quite worked out as well as I'd hoped. Whilst the sound is distinctly analogue in texture, at times it just sounds too muddy and opaque, and the fantastically catchy riffs often become buried within themselves. The sound also lacks a certain depth to it and in key places it comes off as a bit flat and stale. I ended up wrestling with the sound, working hard to seek out the intricate guitar nuances which make Pallbearer such interesting composers. It's great when I do find them, but the digging itself isn't that enjoyable. It's made up for somewhat in the vocal hooks which are clear and soulful and are the finest Pallbearer have ever written; lead singer Brett Campbell has absolutely outdone himself here. It's such a shame, because the songwriting on this record is terrific and the slightly meandering tendencies the band had fallen into on Heartless are for the most part gone, only showing up on the 12 minute long Silver Wings. My hopes had been so high, and whilst I did enjoy Forgotten Days, it didn't live up to expectations in terms of the sound. Interesting the album has been getting rave reviews, but I have seen a few mentions of the disappointment in the sound from some reviewers.

On the other hand, May Our Chambers Be Full is even better than I expected it to be; it's a stunning record that blends the two artists styles together perfectly. All the heaviness and eclecticism of Thou's take on sludge is brought out and made incredibly powerful by Emma Ruth Rundle's remarkable vocals and beautiful guitar layers. At no point do you feel like either artist has compromised any element of their style. The record sounds fantastic too, as have all of Thou's albums since Summit, and as I can't find a specific credit for it I am assuming that either the record was self produced or that long time Thou engineer James Whitten has helped craft this record too. Either the way the sound is amazing, and far outshines the Pallbearer record in that respect. Whilst these artists are not especially comparable beyond a surface level genre tag, it is telling that the band who have stuck staunchly to their DIY ethics are the ones creating the better album. I am not accusing Pallbearer of selling out, but you would expect that the group releasing music through one of the biggest labels in the genre and working with one of the most accomplished producers in the heavy music game would be creating the better sounding record. 

So what to conclude from this? Pallbearer aren't going to lose fans from this, they certainly haven't lost me, but I'm perhaps a little disappointed. There is still a lot to enjoy about Forgotten Days - the hooks are still there and they are as catchy and sweet as ever, and the band have upped their songwriting game once again. However the faults with the album have been exacerbated for me by just how fantastic May Our Chambers Be Full is, and perhaps that is an unfair mark against Pallbearer. What I can definitely attest though is that having the choice of album to listen to on repeat for my flight back next week, I am definitely going for May Our Chambers Be Full.

Forgotten Days is available on Bandcamp here

May Our Chambers Be Full is available on Bandcamp here