### Pelican: City of echoes

#### 27/07/07 || The Duff

My introduction to this band came with its latest album, “An Album Title Way Too Fucken Long For Me To Repeat Here, So Look It Up Your Fucken Selves” – just having come down from the aural orgasm that was Isis’ “Panopticon” (that’s how you name a fucken post-rock album!), I wanted more of the same, and bought “The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw” (to save you some time) on a whim, ‘cos the album artwork looked pretty damn trendy. I was seriously impressed with that album, especially seeing as the band had no vocalist in their ranks, and as such chased down their debut full-length, “Australasia”. Again, an outstanding effort within the sub-genre, lifting my hopes for this album to a relatively high standard, considering that I don’t think about what the band is doing too often during my waking hours.

So how does this album differ from Pelican’s earlier works? I was told that the post-rock sound of which they are now almost considered instigators had been abandoned for something entirely different, and if such is the case, then I can’t fucken pick up on it. Sure, there may very well be some subtle changes here and there, and a couple of new musical influences added for the sake of experimenting, but at heart what you got with this band’s past efforts is what you get with “City of Echoes” – lengthy tracks combining chugging metal riffs with sweet, clean guitar passages, describing a band’s sound has never come simpler – if you dig Isis and Mogwai, chances are that you’ll dig this.

You know, as much as these guys have released album upon album sounding practically identical (I have only heard the full-lengths, and therefore cannot judge for any radical shifts in direction the E.P.s may have contained), the material they write is simply a pleasure to listen to. It would be nice to hear a little variation on the next release, but this effort comes in no time flat from when “The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw” hit us, and so the fact that they’ve released yet another album of such high quality makes me indifferent that it’s simply more of the same.

In short, I’m very content with “City of Echoes”. These guys are still managing to come out with the goods by writing really interesting stuff, no easy feat considering that they have no vocalist amidst their ranks and instead rely purely on the music to carry things forward. I would highly recommend anyone who enjoyed this band’s past efforts to seek this one out; to newcomers of the band, I would suggest “Australasia” or “The Fire In Our Throats…” over this, as they are the better albums of Pelican’s triage of solid efforts.

7 “golly-gees, they did it again” out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2007
- Label: Hydrahead
- Website: www.hydrahead.com/pelican
- Band
- Laurent Lebec: guitars
- Trevor de Brauw: guitars
- Bryan Herweg: bass
- Larry Herweg: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Bliss In Concrete
- 02. City Of Echoes
- 03. Spaceship Broken Parts Needed
- 04. Winds With Hands
- 05. Dead Between The Walls
- 06. Lost In The Headlights
- 07. Far From Fields
- 08. Delicate Sense Of Balance