Once in the thick of recording, 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 discover that some of the previous day’s work had been corrupted overnight. This resulted in some parts of the album being recorded many times over. The guitars in particular mutated into something Sisyphean.”
Rowland continues, “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 version as the numerous file corruptions, delays, and exhausted studio budget compounded into a final feverish push to finish the mix. We were relieved to get those 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.” More than a decade later, Pallbearer seized the opportunity to revisit the record from the ground up. Over the past year, the band meticulously reconstructed the album from the original sessions.
“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,” Rowland continues. “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.”
In celebration of the 2025 Redux edition of their landmark album Pallbearer will be playing select shows performing Foundations of Burden in full.
