Pallbearer’s landmark sophomore album “Foundations of Burden” given the complete overhaul, remixed from scratch by Mario Quintero, remastered by Adam Gonsalves with additional audio reconstruction by the band themselves, this re-issue of “Foundations of Burden” has been given the elixir to bring a new sense of exaltation to this milestone release.
The band ststes: “Over the past year we’ve completely reconstructed ‘Foundations of Burden’ from the original sessions, with remixed and remastered treatments of its six pieces that fully realize our original vision for this transformative part of our history. This refreshed release features entirely new artwork from artist Ben Vierling, imbuing the album with his own visionary interpretation of the record’s iconography.
2xLP Variants:
Metallic Gold Marble – Band exclusive, 300 copies
Iridescent Blue Marble – Profound Lore exclusive, 500 copies
Black
Pre-Orders for “Foundations of Burden (2025 Redux)” on 2xLP and CD are now available from Pallbearer and Profound Lore US & EU stores and Bandcamp: https://geni.us/PallbearerFOB2025Redux
“During the writing and preparation for Foundations, everything was ephemeral and we were practically feral. Our lives were defined by impermanence and every day was a dervish. Longstanding relationships eroded and were replaced with instability. We had no real practice space, we barely had a single working computer between the four of us. Our demos of the record consisted of something barely discernable from white noise.
Nevertheless, we knew we were working towards building a set of songs we were deeply enthusiastic about as a follow up to our debut. We were dazzled at the prospect of living out a dream scenario: recording out of our home state of Arkansas, in a real studio, with the mastermind behind more than a few of our favorite and most influential albums at the helm.
Once in the thick of it recording with Billy Anderson, the feeling went from dream to dreamlike very quickly, as we found ourselves in what felt like an endless churn of repetition. We slept at the studio on whatever soft surfaces we could find, waking each day to the monochrome of Portland’s winter sky and the quake of a massive piledriver operating at a nearby construction site — once Billy arrived we were likely to discover that some of the previous day’s work was corrupted overnight. This resulted in some parts of the album being recorded many times over. The guitars in particular mutated into something Sisyphean. To this day I’m still not sure what caused the errors or how we managed to keep some takes from being irretrievably ruined, but in those days chaos was one of our few constants.
Since the time that we finally committed the original version of Foundations to print, we knew it would be a sonic space we would eventually revisit. Its form did not unfold according to the original vision we shared with Billy, as the numerous file corruptions, delays and exhausted studio budget compounded into a final feverish push to finish the mix. At the end of several “normal” days finalizing the sessions, we began the marathon to avoid missing the looming deadline when time and money ran out. We sat at the console for 23 hours writing fader automation and making increasingly fatigued decisions on five weeks worth of recording until only Billy and I remained awake, and as the next band on the books for the studio loaded their gear into the adjoining live room.
We were relieved to get these massive and difficult mixes turned into finished songs just in time, but not without a nagging thought; we had to sacrifice much of the nuance we had spent so much time crafting before and during our time there.
In the time since then, we have played most of the songs from Foundations more times than we can count, and they remain some of our favorites. The songs have grown with us. And while we hold a deep love and attachment to what we created in 2014, we also gained a fuller understanding of how we would want to re-present them if we had a chance. After years of discussion, listening and learning, we found ourselves in the position to fulfill that vision. We familiarized ourselves with the original sessions, weeded through the mountains of guitar takes, and reconstituted/recaptured aspects of the recording using techniques we’ve learned in the decade since the original release. This isn’t an arbitrary cosmetic refresh, it’s a collective effort to honor the true foundational elements of this epoch.
Our goal was to retain these six songs’ often-massive sonic zones, while giving our collective performances room we felt they should have to breathe and exist in those spaces. There are minute details and personalities to these pieces that I had all but forgotten; it’s a joyous experience to hear them in the open for the first time in over a decade.” – Pallbearer
“Foundations of Burden (2025 Redux)” will be released digitally November 7th and physically December 5th.
Re-issue produced by Pallbearer
Original sessions engine-eared by Billy Anderson
Recorded at Type Foundry Studios, Portland, OR in February and March 2014
Audio reconstruction by Devin Holt and Brett Campbell in North Little Rock, AR throughout 2025
2025 engineering by Joseph D. Rowland at Idlewild Audio, North Little Rock, AR
2025 mix by Mario Quintero at AudioMQ, Pittsburgh, PA
2025 master by Adam Gonsalves at Telegraph Mastering, Portland, OR
Painting by Benjamin Vierling
Two very special shows coming up.
On August 29th we’ll be playing a benefit at Sticky’z in Little Rock for our dear friend Nate Garrett of Spirit Adrift and his wife Nicole. Tickets for this will be on sale soon, keep your eye on our socials.
On September 6th we return to Seattle for Substation’s 10th anniversary where we’ll be performing Foundations of Burden in its entirety for the very first time ever. Tickets are on sale now.