Chicago’s Pelican released their 5th studio album on October 15th, 2013 through Southern Lord Records. Recorded at Electrical Audio Studios with producer Chris Common, this is Pelican’s first studio album since 2001 to lack founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec. Instead, after debating the thought of continuing as a three piece act, when Laurent decided to take more time out for his family, Dallas Thomas joined the band full time, adding his influence to the new album, Forever Becoming (Southern Lord).
The albums starts off airy and minimalist with ‘Terminal.’ The snare sound is unreal! So crisp and clear that I wonder what replacement sample they used, if indeed it’s not their own snare because I want it badly. If it is their snare, I bend on one knee before their engineer and lower my head in humble awe. Sound permeates the spread of mouldy mildew, crawling in ceiling crevices and encircling windowpanes. Crisp but maintaining an air of dissonance, the bass grumbles in the background for balance. It’s a bit too careful in its emotions, holding back anger, lust, loss. More of a ballad for the falsely vacant soul.
With the second track ‘Deny The Absolute,’ I though I was getting handed a lead heavy dose of metal, only to have them pussy out in 20 second. I guess I’m just searching for something amidst my flu ridden headache to charge these bacteria out of my blood stream. This mid-tempo post metal just isn’t cutting it. The riffs at the end held some interesting pattern and once again, the kit sounded incredible, not to mention Larry Herweg’s playing was spot on.
‘The Tundra;’ now here’s the downtrodden mammoth pull I was searching for. Unfortunately this track was far too repudiative to keep my interest without lyrical content. Not really sure who decided that was the right ending for that track either. A chaotic noise outro? Way to follow-up a good ending on the last track with an abysmal one. This coming from the lady who loves noise.
The rest of the album is about the same. Melodic, calming and relatively mediocre. Pelican breeds interest to post-metal fans looking for an instrumental background piece to sooth out their mind from the underflow of downtime. I can’t shake the thought that they will always just be a a wannabe ISIS in my mind. Maybe just go listen to “Oceanic” instead. It would be time better spent but I guess this is okay too.
By: Christine Hager