So, Pelican return with what a cynic might call offcuts from their last album, ‘Forever Becoming’. However, they’ve taken the opportunity to show a number of ways ‘The Cliff’ could have been so very different, while offering up ‘The Wait’, developed during the album sessions but deemed incomplete at that time.
The vocal version of ‘The Cliff’ sees Pelican rejoined by Allen Epley of Shiner, The Life and Times. Epley’s drawling vocals certainly compliment the finely-crafted music it rides, as gently chiming guitars interweave and rupture into stormy tides.
Justin K Broadrick’s instrumental remix brings the track’s brooding aspects to the fore, and it’s beautifully executed. More Jesu than Godflesh, it combines atmosphere with darkness and a stately sense of weight.
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In contrast, Aaron Harris and Bryant Clifford Meyer of ISIS/Palms retain some of the vocals, but submerge them beneath chugging guitars, swathed in reverb and tussling with some thunderous percussion. Strong stuff.
Meanwhile, ‘The Wait’ proves to be worth the wait. It begins gently, quietly, and erupts into an expansive riff-driven halo of light that’s classic Pelican, rounding off a release that’s hard to fault.
Pelican Online
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