I've long had a soft spot for Pelican and their willingness to blend glacial post-rock with dark metal. The band's last album 'The Fire in our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw' took ideas from the similarly inspired ISIS and Neurosis and extended the tracks to Godspeed-style lengths, losing any desire to layer vocals and foist 'proper song structure' into the tracks. It was bound to be successful and the band's sizzling riffage paired with a willingness to embrace the quiet-loud-quiet-loud post-rock structure gave them instant recognisability within muso circles, their use of metal sounds (heavy distortion, chunky power chords) only gave them a 'right place right time' acceptability which saw them break into yet another area of the music scene. Now the band are back with possibly their most perfectly formed record yet, an album which sees them lay to rest the clunky long-form experiments that made up the majority of their last album and move into more memorable, shorter tracks while retaining the riffage that they have become known for. We open on a high with the metallic throb of 'Bliss in Concrete' all bassy strumming and symphonic guitar work - in fact the guitar interplay on 'City of Echoes' shows a great deal of improvement since 'The Fire.' and is way more engrossing and intricate than the band have ever managed before. With tracks as memorable and as affecting as the title track 'City of Echoes' there's enough reason for anyone with an ISIS-fetish to go and hunt down the album as quickly as they possibly can. Lovely stuff, and well worth a closer look.
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I've long had a soft spot for Pelican and their willingness to blend glacial post-rock with dark metal. The band's last album 'The Fire in our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw' took ideas from the similarly inspired ISIS and Neurosis and extended the tracks to Godspeed-style lengths, losing any desire to layer vocals and foist 'proper song structure' into the tracks. It was bound to be successful and the band's sizzling riffage paired with a willingness to embrace the quiet-loud-quiet-loud post-rock structure gave them instant recognisability within muso circles, their use of metal sounds (heavy distortion, chunky power chords) only gave them a 'right place right time' acceptability which saw them break into yet another area of the music scene. Now the band are back with possibly their most perfectly formed record yet, an album which sees them lay to rest the clunky long-form experiments that made up the majority of their last album and move into more memorable, shorter tracks while retaining the riffage that they have become known for. We open on a high with the metallic throb of 'Bliss in Concrete' all bassy strumming and symphonic guitar work - in fact the guitar interplay on 'City of Echoes' shows a great deal of improvement since 'The Fire.' and is way more engrossing and intricate than the band have ever managed before. With tracks as memorable and as affecting as the title track 'City of Echoes' there's enough reason for anyone with an ISIS-fetish to go and hunt down the album as quickly as they possibly can. Lovely stuff, and well worth a closer look.
I've long had a soft spot for Pelican and their willingness to blend glacial post-rock with dark metal. The band's last album 'The Fire in our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw' took ideas from the similarly inspired ISIS and Neurosis and extended the tracks to Godspeed-style lengths, losing any desire to layer vocals and foist 'proper song structure' into the tracks. It was bound to be successful and the band's sizzling riffage paired with a willingness to embrace the quiet-loud-quiet-loud post-rock structure gave them instant recognisability within muso circles, their use of metal sounds (heavy distortion, chunky power chords) only gave them a 'right place right time' acceptability which saw them break into yet another area of the music scene. Now the band are back with possibly their most perfectly formed record yet, an album which sees them lay to rest the clunky long-form experiments that made up the majority of their last album and move into more memorable, shorter tracks while retaining the riffage that they have become known for. We open on a high with the metallic throb of 'Bliss in Concrete' all bassy strumming and symphonic guitar work - in fact the guitar interplay on 'City of Echoes' shows a great deal of improvement since 'The Fire.' and is way more engrossing and intricate than the band have ever managed before. With tracks as memorable and as affecting as the title track 'City of Echoes' there's enough reason for anyone with an ISIS-fetish to go and hunt down the album as quickly as they possibly can. Lovely stuff, and well worth a closer look.