Pelican

On paper, Stockholm Syndrome appeared to be something of a negative contrast to Pelican tonight and unfortunately, it did show. Their hardcore-screamo stylings are arguably, far from a match made in heaven. Disappointingly, their efforts appeared lost on all but a few of the most faithful in the crowd of around couple of hundred or so punters in evidence tonight.

With enough torque to pull out tree stumps, the foursome screamed, blipped, squelched and dirged their way through a set that didn’t inspire much of anything; unfortunately, it just appeared lost. At set’s seemingly abrupt ending, the band apologised for their performance and it wasn’t until this point that you had an indication that there may well have been the odd difficulty; technical or otherwise. Dual mic’ attacking vocalist Eli Partridge managed to provide a constant disturbance between songs with his errant effects box, although it was difficult to tell if it was part of their regular routine or not.

Needless to say, with the bands apology indicating that all was not as it should be, a second chance is granted.

For a group that named their first album Australasia, it seems to have taken the Chicago (now L.A based) four piece Pelican, forever to get here and with that, everyone moved to the front.

Call it post, prog, sludge, doom, metal whatever you like; their instrumental tapestries really don’t sit in any pigeon hole very comfortably at all, yet certainly touch on many.

Expecting four gentlemen to enter the stage and basically stare at their shoes for an entire set, Pelican surprise with their constant animation throughout. No, we are not talking crowd participation or endless between song banter, but they constantly jump around with plenty of head nodding and are quite unashamedly ‘into’ what they are doing.

Most Pelican tunes are of somewhat epic proportions. This is the sort of band that you would like to see play through their entire back catalogue from start to finish and it would have been nicer to see a longer than an hour ten set. Yet, by including tracks from the recently released City Of Echoes, their self proclaimed ‘pop’ album (most tracks are around the five minute mark as opposed to the usual ten or eleven) it did allow for a fair number of tracks to be delivered in all their fat, syrupy, bottom end driven goodness.

'Dead between the walls' and 'Lost in the headlights' from the new release impress with their twin guitar staccato, but it’s the title track, 'City of echoes', with it’s up tempo breeziness, that stands out from the newer material.

As good as the new material comes off, it’s the older tracks that are sought after. To not close eyes and get caught up in the building, velvet hammer intensity of 'Angel Tears' and 'Last Day of Winter' is difficult and many indulge in this, floating off to the delicate yet violent sounds.

While not appearing to be overly ‘metal technical’, the merging of guitarists de Brauw and Lebec’s abilities at times produces some of the sweetest harmonics imaginable, one of the many layers that Pelican build their tunes on. On other occasions, in tandem with the rhythm section of the brothers Herweg, Pelican can create some of the thickest almost bowel moving bottom end driven riffs known to man. Their ability to deliver beautifully brutal sound scapes is second to none.

Standouts for the night have to be 'Sirius' and 'Mammoth', and with these they confirm the above statement unequivocally. Sirius leaves all those little hairs on the back of your neck standing quite firmly to attention while Mammoth literally moves through you with its skewed tempo and riff, the viscosity of molasses.

Unfortunately, too short a set.

Fortunately, one of the best of the year.

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