- Country: United States
- Style: Doom metal
- Label: Profound Lore Records
- Release date: 19 August 2014
I was worried about this one. Sorrow and Extinction was such a complete statement that a follow-up seemed almost pointless. I needn’t have been. Foundations of Burden is bigger, sadder and more ambitious, and the Little Rock four-piece pull it off.
The big change is the singing. Brett Campbell is no longer carrying every line alone; Devin Holt and Joseph D. Rowland sing too, and the layered harmonies turn the choruses of “Worlds Apart” and “The Ghost I Used to Be” into something close to hymns. Billy Anderson recorded them in Portland, and his production gives the guitars room to breathe – you can hear the twin leads separating and coming back together instead of melting into fog.
“Watcher in the Dark” opens with over a minute of grinding chords before the drums arrive, and it is the heaviest thing here. “Ashes”, at just over three minutes, is a quiet interlude that sets up “Vanished”, an eleven-minute closer that ends the album on a long, slow exhale.
Six songs, nearly an hour, and not a wasted riff. This is the best traditional doom record of the decade so far.
Best tracks:
Worlds Apart
The Ghost I Used to Be
Watcher in the Dark
Vanished
Author’s rating: 9.2/10
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