DESERTFEST
VENUE VARIOUS, CAMDEN, LONDON
DATE 16/05/2025-17/05/2025
Understandably, Camden’s Desertfest doesn’t pull a huge number of prog fans – the multitude of stoner rock-leaning bands on offer isn’t exactly a draw. However, the event always features a few bands who buck the trend and, on Saturday evening at The Roundhouse, Little Rock quartet Pallbearer offer something that leans well into the prog sphere.
The fact they began life as a doom metal band might be enough to have them dismissed immediately by some reading this, but ever since their third album, 2017’s Heartless, Pallbearer have been moving in a more progressive direction, culminating in last year’s Mind Burns Alive album, which pretty much eschewed the doom riffs for atmospheric prog and post-rock. Surprisingly, given the event, they perform the moody Signals from the new album mid-set, which receives rousing cheers. More surprisingly, they ignore Heartless altogether, dipping back to their debut for Given To The Grave; both World’s Apart and The Ghost I Used To Be from second album, Foundations Of Burden; and open the set with Silver Wings from 2020’s Forgotten Days. It’s all toweringly epic, with harmonious, melodic vocals, and while they do pack a hefty punch at times, they twist through enough musical intrigue to sate a prog metal fan’s needs with ease.