by Sweetch

Created on: December 20, 2008

PELICAN: CHICAGO'S INDUSTRIAL SCENE RE-AWAKENED.

The trend toward metal-industrial fusion among many indy bands of the last 5-10 years has been a notable phenomenom. The arrival of a 4-piece, comprising two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer and basing themselves in Chicago, was another great event on the alternative music calender back in the early 2000s. Pelican had arrived on the scene, following in already carefully trodden footsteps of great bands like Mogwai, Refused, and other lesser known crossover (e.g. metal-electronica, metal-jazz fusion etc.) bands around the globe. One unique aspect of Pelican's music is that it harbours no discernible lyrical content (apart from the odd scream or groan). This is another feature of their music which allows the deeply layered, richly reverbed and harmonically distorted string arrangements to really envelope the listener.

Although not exclusively metal-oriented (in fact, some compositions tend to be more like slow grunge and industrial laments, much in the same vein as certain Nine-Inch-Nails references) the general metal riff sequences are often bunched into 'chapters' and can also frequently be separated by completely different outer-wordly sequences (a classic Mogwai trait too). In earlier Pelican releases (such as the Pelican EP or Australasia LP), the most prominent features of their music were based around massive soundwall structures complete with sustain, distortion and the eternal crash of cymbals. Songs like Pulse, The Woods and Angel Tears typified this style. Punctuated throughout these two albums were up-tempo tunes which seemed to adopt more conventional metal riff sequences, although occasionally, some of these patterns tended to undergo an overprint of clashing notes and chords, of the much pleasing varieties first developed by Sonic Youth and later adopted by grunge bands like My Bloody Valentine, Soundgarden, Swervedriver and Smashing Pumpkins. It was these surprising little additions to otherwise fairly robust tunes that caught this listener's ear.

Later works (LPS - The Fire In Our Throats....., City Of Echoes) maintained the acoustic ambience of earlier works (albeit with lashings of mega-reverb and sustain!), but seemed to delve into more broadened experimental territory (refer to songs like Sirius, Bliss In Concrete). However, City of Echoes tended to come across as an album which was dedicated more to the band's metal roots and influences, as it also contains more up-tempo, metal patterned riffs

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