Review & Full Album Stream: Pale Divine, Pale Divine
[Click play above to stream Pale Divine’s self-titled album in full. It’s out Nov. 23 on Shadow Kingdom Records.]
The level of coincidence is somewhat astounding. Pennsylvania’s Pale Divine are well past the 20-year mark since forming in 1995. By now the stuff of Chesapeake regional legend, their first demo arrived in 1997 (was also reissued in 2008). Their fourth and otherwise most recent album, Painted Windows Black (review here), was released early in 2012, and a short time after it came out, founding drummer Darin McCloskey and guitarist/vocalist Greg Diener recruited Ron “Fezz” McGinnis to play bass. McGinnis, who’s known for his work in the mostly-instrumental Admiral Browning, as well as Bailjack, the more extreme Thonian Horde and a host of others, was not a minor pickup. In stage presence, tone and complement to Diener‘s vocals, McGinnis was a personality shift for the band that was far more significant than the phrase, “he’s their eighth bassist,” would lead one to believe.
Now, as Pale Divine make a definitive statement by issuing their fifth LP, an eight-track/46-minute self-titled, through Shadow Kingdom Records, the situation is oddly similar. Always a trio save for one stint around the time of their third album, 2007’s Cemetery Earth, Pale Divine‘s Pale Divine lands, gorgeous in tone and as downtrodden in spirit as it is righteous in its traditionalism, as heard on cuts like opener “Spinning Wheel” and the extended blues-informed pieces “So Low” and “Shades of Blue,” just as the trio welcomes Dana Ortt of Beelzefuzz — in which Diener and McCloskey both play, the latter as a founding member, the former as a pickup for their second record — on guitar. A self-titled has a tendency to be a clear signal on the part of a band saying “this is who we are.” And tracks like the rocking “Bleeding Soul” and the penultimate “Silver Tongues,” which has a bounce worthy of the band’s one-time contemporaries in Spirit Caravan, live up to that. But the timing. Pale Divine put out their fourth album and made a considerable change in their dynamic, and now with their fifth album they’ve done the same thing.
Does that make Pale Divine moot? In a word: no. The songs are the key. In the fullness of the record’s emotional heft and across-the-board sonic execution, the way it slides into classic doom because it is that very same classic doom, nodding at Trouble on “Chemical Decline” before just nodding, period, in the early going of the subsequent “So Low” — which in its second half also features a very long guitar solo, making it easy to remember on a linguistic level too — it’s still a process of Pale Divine defining who they are in a specific point in time. From the early signal of a changed mindset with McGinnis joining Diener on vocals for the Pentagram-informed apex of “Spinning Wheel” to the Sabbathian chug, compressed lead tone and sleek groove of “Curse the Shadows” of the also-dual-voiced “Curse the Shadows,” which dates back at least five years to a demo from 2013, Pale Divine emphasize the outside-of-time nature of trad doom even as they put their own stamp on the classic style with the force of Diener‘s vocals, the understated but always locked-in drumming of McCloskey and the flash in McGinnis‘ basslines — as heard in the later gallop on that same “Curse the Shadows” — as well as the fluidity of their songwriting.
Pieces like “So Low,” which sources its lyrical depression from within and without, or “Bleeding Soul,” with its uptempo hook in the line, “A bleeding soul will find no rest,” or the initial showoff rumble of low end in “Shades of Blue” and the instantly familiar chorus there that follows as the eight-minute track unfolds, are resonant in their downer spirit and stately in their delivery. But one of the accusations often leveled at traditional doom is that it’s staid and dry in its delivery and that applies even less to Pale Divine than it ever has to Pale Divine‘s work before. With the flourish of Southern-style and progressive acoustic/electric guitar layers on closer “Ship of Fools” and the smoothness of their rhythmic and tempo shifts as shown in “Chemical Decline” and “So Low,” as well as Diener‘s vocal delivery across the release and what McGinnis brings in periodic complement to that, there’s nothing but a genuine soulfulness to Pale Divine‘s Pale Divine, and it’s not just boozy self-defeat, though there’s a bit of that also. “Silver Tongues,” “Shades of Blue,” “Spinning Wheel” have, to go with the subtle changes in approach between them, a sense of looking beyond oneself. Not like there isn’t plenty of doom to behold if you have the eyes to see it. Clearly Pale Divine do.
Okay, but then what? What’s the resolution? Well, one could argue there’s hope along with a resigned sensibility in the interwoven soloing on “Ship of Fools,” and positioned as that is at the end of the album — doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that a band who seem well set to hit the quarter-century mark would make a purposeful choice on a closer — with a long fadeout that caps the LP as a whole, it carries a kind of “keep marching” message. You trod on, because what else is there? Fair enough, but it seems on the whole that Pale Divine is less directly about examination and critique than it is the simple act of conveying the experience of living it. Consider the lyrics of “So Low,” with Diener seeming to recount on the page his own lack of inspiration and pervasive depression, the distancing of the self from one’s own existence. Maybe there’s an element of catharsis in the expression, but the songs don’t go so far as to portray that, nor could they, since if it’s there, it’s an after-effect. The point is that what Pale Divine are doing is, to an extent, what they’ve always done in bringing to life the tenets of classic American doom metal while retaining the central identity of who they are as individual players and as a group.
For that, Pale Divine could hardly be more relevant, regardless of the fact that the lineup has changed since it was recorded. Their dynamic may indeed shift with Ortt as a member alongside Diener, McCloskey and McGinnis, but that’s a question for live shows and however many years down the road when and if there’s another album, because who the hell knows what might happen now and then. Pale Divine‘s self-titled earns the name by being a sincere representation of who the band is in its moment, and while moments are inherently fleeting, the poise and maturity of their craft and the passion so rife in their delivery are essential components of what makes them who they are, who they’ve become over their years together. That’s always been in flux and it still will be, but in context, Pale Divine reminds of that too, and so all the more stands as the epitome of their persona.
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Tags: Glen Mills, Pale Divine, Pale Divine Self-titled, Pennsylvania, self-titled, Shadow Kingdom Records
