Review Summary: Pelican return with their third LP City of Echoes. Does it escape the shadow of their past successes?
Pelican is a 4 piece instrumental post-metal band - essentially epic movements of modern progressive metal that works on repettition and the building of layers to create instrumental soundscapes. Or at least that would serve as a previous definition of the Pelican sound, but with City of Echoes the band take = a) a step back, b) a step forward, or c) a step to the side, depending on what you look for in the bands sound.
The bands release prior to this, 'The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw', was a truly genre defining album. It had all the essential elements of what Pelican displayed in their first full length 'Australasia' - walls of guitar, ever building atmosphere and long, intense song structure - but with 'The Fire...' Pelican adopted a distinctly more modern edge to their pallet. It felt like an album that was of (and some would argue, defined) its time, a snapshot of how far modern metal had come. It displayed the true power of heavy guitar music as something far more artistic and considered than just loud, aggressive noise without direction or purpose. One thing that was certain after the sheer unrelenting praise 'The Fire...' recieved was the innevitable let down 'City of Echoes' would incur. Pelican could have written the best album known to man, and still, compared to an album that many proclaimed to be 'perfect' and 'a masterpiece', would have nonetheless been crippled by the weight of expectation. From Pelicans perspective then, it was truly a lose lose situation - there was no way to follow up what they had achieved.
Instead, they pulled the trick many bands do after writing a masterpiece of their genre, they didnt try to follow it up. Rather, they stepped back and looked at their sound from a new perspective, trying to approach it from a different angle to achieve a sound that, whilst not necessarily better than their previous behemoth, would certainly be different. And that, if anything, has certainly been achieved on 'City of Echoes'. It's an unashamedly more compact and direct offering than their previous slow burners, with no track clocking in over their usual signature song length of 10+ minutes. However, musically it is their most complex work to date. What their tighter track lengths have done is instill the band with a much more frantic sense of pace and structure. Gone are the slow layers of sound building up to dramatic climaxes - 'City of Echoes' simply delivers the punch without asking any patience of the listener. First track 'Bliss In Concrete' is a perfect example of this, with its complex riff-laden structure, clocking in at a modest 5:30 and wasting no time in hitting its big riffs, its unlike any previous album opener the band has written. It's far more compact, cramped and schizophrenic - it plays like its in a hurry - and most of the album continues in that same mindset.
This, however, is not to say it's anything other than fantastic. The band still hit hard with tracks such as 'Dead Between The Walls' and the aforementioned opener, still lull with the blissfully delicate acoustic track 'Winds With Hands' and still create epic tides of harmonised guitar with the utterly superb 'Far From Fields'. One thing that should be mentioned, especially in the case of the last track in that list, is how improved the guitar interplay is on this album. Whilst on previous releases the guitars were one very well executed beast, more effort has gone into the two instruments playing off of eachother this time round, perhaps emphasised by their often cleaner guitar sound. It makes for a very interesting listen, especially from the point of view of a guitarist (which may make my opinions on the matter somewhat biased). However, the bass is also more prominent on this release it would seem, once again probably a result of the cleaner guitar tone giving a more even sound to the mix as a whole.
One thing that should be noted is the drumming. Larry Herweg has recieved alot of bad press for his 'simplistic' drumming it would seem. The truth is, hes a very competent drummer, but moves more with the band and backs up the overall sound rather than being overly occupied with showing off any chops of his own. The problem is, he shouldnt be made a focal point of the band for these reasons, and to me he simply sounds too high in the mix on 'City of Echoes', making it far easier to pick holes in his performance. Still, he moves the percussion section along nicely enough, and despite not wowing on this disc I still think hes often dealt an unfair hand in alot of reviews, as he plays his part well enough for it not to become of any real distraction.
Overall, despite 'City of Echoes' sometimes missing its target ('Spaceship Broken - Parts Needed' and the title track never seem to really find their footing), it remains a worthy addition to the Pelican catalogue. Pelican could have tried to make another 'The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw' or 'Australasia', but after so many proclaimed 'The Fire...' as perfecting their sound, there wouldn't have been much point. Instead they've done something far bolder in trying to reinvent what they do. 'City of Echoes' doesn't quite do that, but it's certainly a hint that the next disc might.
