Pallbearer have released “Quicksand of Existing,” the third single from their upcoming album, Forgotten Days, which is set for a release on October 23. Along with the release of the single, “Quicksand of Existing” was accompanied by a music video that had been directed by Ben Meredith.
The sound of the track pulls from Black Sabbath, with Brett Campbell’s voice delivering the energy which had been found in metal’s earlier days. “Quicksand of Existing” takes a slightly softer sound from what is associated with modern-day metal, and instead throws listeners back to the ’70s and ’80s with its guitar riffs and vocals. Lyrics highlight the sadness of life, the second verse describing: “Hence, I know/That each night/Presents a chance to paralyze myself/When poison clouds the past/Before I’ve sunken down.”
“As we strive to be, the forces of entropy perpetually pull us down into a state of being unmade,” the band’s bass player and songwriter, Joseph D. Rowland, said in a press statement. “The body degrades; the mind and memories fray into unwoven threads, no longer connected to the rich fabric of the self. Choices made upon our separate and conjoined paths may find us engulfed in a mire of our unmaking. I wanted this song to face this reality with a grim determination.”
The video follows two couples, one couple separated from one of them being in prison, and the other because one is in the hospital. The woman in the hospital bed is first introduced during the lyric “I just might breathe my last/Before I’ve sunken down.” The beginning of the video sees both men running from a police officer, one getting caught while the other manages to escape. Each couple spends the entirety of the video separated from one another, wallowing in their sadness.
Each character eventually fades, finding themselves trapped in an alternate dimension where their body begins to fade, the lyrics darkening the image with “The darker days will always multiply/Ad nauseam, until I’ve sunken down/And down.”
The album’s completion was first announced in December of last year, with Pallbearer announced the album’s release and sharing its title track in July. A music video for the first single single’s music video released shortly after, with”Rite of Passage,” Forgotten Days‘ second single, being released last month. Forgotten Days will be Pallbearer’s four studio release, and their first via Nuclear Blast Records.
Photo credit: Sharon Alagna
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