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Pale Divine Announce New Self-Titled LP

Posted in Whathaveyou on April 9th, 2018 by JJ Koczan

pale divine

A new Pale Divine record does not come along every day. It’s been six years since the Glen Mills, PA-based trio issued their last full-length, Painted Windows Black (review here), so yeah, if you believe in due, they’re due. The new album, which will be the first since Ron “Fezz” McGinnis stepped into the bassist role, seemingly permanently, alongside guitarist/vocalist Greg Diener and drummer Darin McCloskey. Over the last few years, they’ve been regulars at the Maryland Doom Fest and also appeared at Doom in June, Vultures of Volume and at the Brooklyn stop of the Tour of the Doomed last August with Sheavy and Beezefuzz, the latter of which also boasts both Diener and McCloskey in its lineup.

Doomers don’t need me to tell them that the prospect of a Pale Divine LP being released at some point this year is automatically something worth keeping an eye out for. There isn’t an exact date given by the band or the label, which is the venerable Shadow Kingdom Records, but when I find out more I’ll let you know. Till then, dig the art by Brad Moore and the tracklisting:

PALE DIVINE S/T

Via Shadow Kingdom Records: PALE DIVINE – Self Titled album (Coming in 2018) will be the band’s greatest representation of their entire career with all fresh new music! Awesome artwork done by the incredible Brad Moore. AND we brought back their classic band logo! Enjoy!

Via Pale Divine: BEHOLD! Here is the cover art (courtesy of Brad Moore) and final track listing for our new album coming out later this year on Shadow Kingdom Records.

“All I can say is its a bit different from past releases,” says bassist Ron “Fezzy” McGinnis. “It’s taken us a good amount of time. We really put a lot of thought and effort into these songs and I think we have done something special. We are hoping the fans dig it.”

Pale Divine – S/T
(2018, SKR159)

Tracklisting:
1. Spinning Wheel
2. Bleeding Soul
3. Chemical Decline
4. So Low
5. Curse the Shadows
6. Shades of Blue
7. Silver tongue
8. Ship of Fools

Pale Divine is:
Greg Diener – vocals & guitar
Ron “Fezzy” McGinnis – bass & vocals
Darin McCloskey – drums

https://www.facebook.com/serpentspath/
http://www.paledivineband.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ShadowKingdomRecords/
https://twitter.com/ShadowKingdom/
https://shadowkingdomrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.shadowkingdomrecords.com/

Pale Divine, Painted Windows Black (2012)

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Pale Divine, Painted Windows Black: Eternity Revived

Posted in Reviews on February 27th, 2012 by JJ Koczan

It’s been 15 years since Eastern Pennsylvania doomers Pale Divine released their pivotal Crimson Tears demo in 1997. That release in many ways would come to define them, as they signed with Game Two Records to issue their also-stellar Thunder Perfect Mind debut in 2001 and shifted to Martyr Music Group for 2004’s follow-up, Eternity Revealed. Some three years later, Cemetery Earth on Shadow Kingdom – who also reissued Crimson Tears in 2008 – promised to be the band’s last album, and it was plain to see their formula had run its course. The record, like everything the band had done leading up to it, was American doom built directly from the traditional prototype, wrecked emotionally but still rooted in a heavy metal burliness that came through in the thick riffs of band mastermind Greg Diener (guitar/vocals). As Pale Divine marked their return with a set at 2011’s Days of the Doomed fest in Wisconsin and followed with one at Stoner Hands of Doom in Maryland in the fall, they seemed armed with a new energy and newfound enthusiasm for what is patently unenthusiastic. Diener and drummer Darin McCloskey (also of Beelzefuzz) teamed with Sinister Realm bassist John Gaffney for those shows, but on their awaited fourth album, Painted Windows Black (Shadow Kingdom), it’s Jerry Bright taking on low end duties for eight tracks packed with enough doom to account for the five years since the last Pale Divine offering.

A lot of what has always been true about Pale Divine remains so on the 68 minutes of Painted Windows Black, and one imagines the band wouldn’t have it any other way. They are doom for doomers, playing off the genre’s conventions even as they remold them in their own image, making what is inherently familiar about traditional doom sound fresh, or at very least newly-miserable. Diener’s vocals keep to a middle range, neither high nor especially low, but add melody nonetheless alongside his guitar despite sometimes moving to the other side of bottom-of-the-mouth post-Hetfield heavy metal conventionalities. Those same conventionalities, though, often work in Pale Divine’s favor, as the instrumental “Nocturne Dementia” opens Painted Windows Black with marked immediacy both in Diener’s guitar and in McCloskey’s capable drumming, which sustains double-kick bass remarkably well underneath layered guitar solos. At six and a half minutes, “Nocturne Dementia” has to be more than just an intro, but the function is the same, even if it works faster than most of the songs’ plod, it sets the tone nonetheless, and the strong opening salvo continues with “The Prophet” (the shortest and most straightforward track at 5:26) and “Angel of Mercy” (9:13), which has Painted Windows Black’s most memorable chorus. Fantastic lead play is near-constant with Diener at the fore, and the album is mixed well so that although he clearly dominates with lead play and is often backing himself with rhythm tracks as well as Bright’s bass, it’s not necessarily overbearing when it’s not trying to be.

Still, Painted Windows Black is clearly led by the guitar and makes no pretense otherwise. “Angel of Mercy” skillfully returns to the chorus following a long instrumental break (there’s room for it), and ends quietly, letting the opening riff of “End of Days” – one of the larger-sounding – add a grandeur to what’s already a well-crafted album. Pale Divine stick to the theme that riff presents for most of that song, letting it play out even under Diener’s solos, but there is some development to be found amid the nine and a half minute sprawl, and by the time the six-minute mark is passed, one is reminded just as much of Pepper Keenan as of Bruce Franklin. More than some of the cuts in the bottom half of the tracklisting, those on the first stand out individually. Their structures largely the same, they nonetheless show personality in their choruses and, bolstered by the lead work – again, Diener’s pretty much putting on a clinic on how to play doom guitar – the tab book would have to come in volumes – tap into what’s always made Pale Divine stand out among their morose peers: technical ability coupled with quality songwriting and a tight grasp on their influences. It’s a clarity of purpose that continues onto “Black Coven,” which works with an ethic similar to “The Prophet” in being a straightforward lead-in for lengthier indulgences to follow. Perhaps not as memorable as “The Prophet” itself, but no less accessible on a doomly level, its familiarity is nearly instant, so that by the end of the song, you already know it and are well grounded as Painted Black Windows moves into its longest and most atmospheric piece, “The Desolate.”

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