Pelican -- City of Echoes

8/10

I own Pelican's City of Echoes on vinyl because its cover looks really cool. I remember spending some of my crawfishing money on it in the spring of 2008, when my wife and I were living in about a 500 square-foot apartment in the coolest part of Baton Rouge. Man, I used to be so young and so cool. Maybe not that cool. Whatever.
Pelican's City of Echoes, artwork not withstanding, does a great job of not caring about cool-factor, dropping the double-digit minute songs of their past, for a bunch of concisely written tracks. This caused an outcry among some fans of the instrumental rock band, but I enjoy the brevity...and the songs still average nearly five-and-a-half minutes in length. The band sounds more like a band here (even the bassist gets to do some cool stuff!), and less like a wall of dissonant, amplified distortion. The drummer still sounds like a simply-programmed robot at times, but he has certainly made strides from the previous album to this one. Yes, City of Echoes is lighter and airier than The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw, and not as epic, but in showing a different side of the band, and an improvement in band chemistry, it equals its predecessor. It's not like City of Echoes never shreds either...while not as many as past Pelican albums, it still contains its heavier moments (the opening track shreds plenty!). With that said, if you can't get any enjoyment from the energetic, upbeat title-track, you might want to get your fun-capacitator checked (yes, that's a real thing, check Wikipedia!).
Cool!


2007 Hydra Head Records
1. Bliss in Concrete 5:30
2. City of Echoes 7:06
3. Spaceship Broken - Parts Needed 6:04
4. Winds With Hands 3:57
5. Dead Between the Walls 5:06
6. Lost in the Headlights 4:10
7. Far from Fields 5:18
8. A Delicate Sense of Balance 5:24