B+Pallbearer
Fear and Fury EP
Profound Lore
Little Rock doom metal heroes Pallbearer are touring with Virginia band Baroness and, while a new full-length album is reportedly in the works, the four-piece -- Brett Campbell, vocals, guitar; Joseph D. Rowland, bass; Devin Holt, guitar; and Mark Lierly, drums -- has just released this neat little three-track EP.
The title cut is a remastered version of a single released by Decibel magazine and is vintage Pallbearer, chugging along at a pace akin to hot lava rolling down a volcano and seething with nuanced complexity; on track two, the band pays homage to forebears and obvious influence Black Sabbath with "Over Over."
But track three -- a faithful cover of goth metal kings Type O Negative's haunting "Love You to Death" -- is the secret weapon of this triumvirate of songs. Campbell rolls his Rs like the late Type O frontman Peter Steele and ably inhabits Steele's dark drama and charisma while the rest of the band locks into a groove that is as much head-bobbing pop-goth as it is head-banging metal.
It's the perfect way to end a brief stopgap collection like this -- with something slightly off-kilter yet firmly in step with the quartet's aesthetic and that also keeps our Pallbearer thirst slaked until the next LP.
Fear and Fury is available for streaming at Spotify, bandcamp (profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com) and iTunes. Limited edition vinyl versions will be released in October. Check profoundlorerecords.com for details.
Hot tracks: All three of 'em
-- SEAN CLANCY
B+Dolly Parton
Pure & Simple
Dolly/RCA
The title of Dolly Parton's new album says it pretty well. There's no bombastic production here; this new batch of songs is anchored in simpler country instrumentation that gives her open-hearted vocals room to express an appealing, believable emotional depth.
Love songs, such as the haunting, romantic title track and the sweet "Say Forever You'll Be Mine," dominate. But there are cheating songs too, such as the "torn between two lovers" tale, "Can't Be That Wrong," with its touchstones in some of country's great tunes, such as "Your Cheatin' Heart." One can feel a hint of '70s country in "Outside Your Door."
The playful "Head Over High Heels," finds Parton teasing her hair, "painting my eyes like Adele" and flirting with her man.
Pure & Simple is a fine showcase for Parton's strengths -- storytelling told and sung in that unmistakable, expressive voice.
There are two more versions of Pure & Simple: a deluxe version with two live tracks and a magazine at Cracker Barrel stores and a version at Wal-Mart that adds a second CD of 10 Parton hits.
Hot tracks: "Pure and Simple," "Can't Be That Wrong," "Outside Your Door"
-- ELLIS WIDNER
A-Chelle Rose
Blue Ridge Blood
Lil' Damsel Records
Appalachian rock 'n' roller Chelle Rose pulls no punches on her newest album, 11 tracks that read like a memoir of her east Tennessee upbringing and all the bitterness and sweetness she has witnessed.
The folk stomper "Mean Grandpappy," about her grandfather on her father's side, opens with the lines "I went home to Knoxville, when they laid him down. Right where he belonged, in the cold hard ground. Not a tear in the eye, of any of his kin, no. Randy's gone home, to Satan's den."
These are the characters of Blue Ridge Blood, Rose's follow-up to her 2012 record Ghost of Browder Holler. The new album finds Rose exploring family history and her own dark persona, nowhere better than on the album's centerpiece, the front-porch singalong title track featuring Americana singer-songwriter Buddy Miller.
Rose's voice is proud and strong in delivering the sometimes wounded words of Blue Ridge Blood, with her vocals matching the volume of the tracks: raw and powerful on the rocker "Gypsy Rubye," and sweet and gentle on slower tracks, such as the gorgeous "Hidin Hole."
Hot Tracks: "Reckon With the Devil," "Blue Ridge Blood," "Mean Grandpappy," "Hidin Hole"
-- SHEA STEWART
BGucci Mane
Everybody Looking
Atlantic
Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane was on an epic roll from 2005 (the release of his first album) to 2011 (the time of his last). From that point forward, the incendiary "Mouth of the South" with a raw verbal style and scorched-earth musicality found himself in a world of hurt, be it problems with drugs, Twitter wars or the law. Incarcerated until spring, Mane -- a solid influence on Migos, Waka Flocka, and Young Thug -- came out of stir with incendiary ideals intact and metaphoric guns blazing, and Everybody Looking is the result.
With the raging "1st Day Out Tha Feds" leading the charge, Everybody Looking is Gucci-lite, more pop than Mane's usually mad, mournful messiah complexities. In the loping "Back on Road" (with Drake) and the silly, slippery "Gucci Please," Mane goes for the gold (rather than blood) on his first album in five years. He even has a song called "Pop Music" for good measure. But it gets only this sweet: "They know my Glocks sing my hooks and we call it pop music." Gucci's guns are still blazing. They just have silencers now.
Hot tracks: "Back on Road," "1st Day Out Tha Feds"
-- A.D. AMOROSI
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Style on 08/30/2016