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Pelican
City of Echoes
[Hydra Head Industries; 2007]
Rating: 4.4

That's it: Fire the drummer. Though it's a problematic if long-standing complaint, Pelican drummer Larry Herweg has consistently prevented his Chicago-based instrumental four-piece from being as transcendent as they've long been touted. On their third album, City of Echoes, it's worse than it's ever been, largely because it now seems that the excellent and consistently developing guitar duo of Laurent Schroeder-Lebec and Trevor de Brauw are better than they've ever been. The compositions and performances have become more subtle and complex and, here, are occasionally as powerful as those early Pelican moments, when a young, passionate band would grind a handful of chords into fine, red-hot dust. But Herweg, unlike his flanking guitarists and even his bassist brother Bryan, hasn't progressed beyond his role of generally beating things hard and misguiding the upswing of a song by botching fills and missing beats. On City of Echoes, he muddles some of the album's most otherwise-transcendent moments, the album's approach of more density and less repetition giving him more opportunities for failure than ever before. Plenty of them are requited.

This complaint is nothing new. Long before Pelican were popularly associated with the post-rock cadre that includes Explosions in the Sky, Mono, and a dozen other post-Young Team acts, Kid606 mentioned that the band, drum machine and all, reminded him favorably of Godflesh. Oops. At this year's South by Southwest, one writer noted Herweg seemed to be made of wood. But City of Echoes demands a different drummer with finesse and a wide toolkit. After all, this is Pelican's big shot at making a more concise and dense album. City of Echoes edges 45 minutes, while 2005's The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw was 14 minutes longer with one less track. Under pressure from producer Andrew Schneider, Pelican spent more time compacting things, excising prior largesse, and letting each part stand out more by raising the contrast. As de Brauw told Decibel reporter Andrew Parks in a fantastic, blunt feature, "There was an intensity that wasn't there before in our songwriting-- a real heightened sense of awareness of each other's parts and a desire to write really compact, perfect songs."

But that entails a wider range of dynamics and a higher number of changes in less time, two qualities that lay a series of snare traps for Herweg. Consider the title track, the only piece here that breaks the seven-minute mark. The ideas warrant such length: Schroeder-Lebec and de Brauw diverge and converge, ricocheting between calculated broods and angular charges with guitar lines stretching as catapults. Less than two minutes in, half of the guitar duo is sprinting in sludge while the other is serializing a triumphant, ascending pattern. But if something sounds like it's unraveling, it is: As he does with almost all of his transitional movements, Herweg falls apart by a hit or two, chopping his hands and losing his place. It's awkward and unnatural, detracting from the intended motion entirely. Pelican proper sounds so good here, really: They're as aggressive and brimming as they are patient and smart, writing an anthem harmed by corrupted technique.

But it's not that Herweg simply can't play; he can't place properly in the band's evolving approach, either. Herweg sits the record's acoustic midsection out, but he spoils the album's other quiet track, closer "A Delicate Sense of Balance". He understeps his pace on a simple turn-around, but even when on point, his big, lumbering drums sound cumbersome and stiff. The guitars snake; he stomps, occasionally subdiving his beat without any awareness for the rest of the band. By the time the track peaks, Herweg stays in place. And, when one of the guitars finally trails off for the dénouement, Herweg's sore thumb is still there, negating delicacy. Herweg's drumming and complete oblivion to feel doesn't allow Pelican the range to be the exciting, dynamic band that's capable of the structural complexity they're interested in here. This makes City of Echoes static and, often, boring.
Ignoring the rhythm section and its side effects, though, this is the best Pelican album yet, largely because de Brauw and Schroeder-Lebec are only getting better in tandem, increasingly comfortable as complementary foils. On "Far From Fields"-- one of the disc's late-breaking, open-vista tracks-- one guitarist embraces textural sweeps while the other builds through a surface staccato motion. Both guitars eventually arrive together, on top, flipping between near-harmonies and counterpoints. It's a special moment, pure finesse. Behind his kit, though, just as the guitars open up and soak in the shimmer of their sound, Herweg sounds like he's staring down, grimacing and just heave-hoeing, sticks in hands, oblivious to the aural eclipse happening feet away. If you focus too hard on how Herweg's trying to keep up (with himself?) and failing, you could miss the beauty of that moment, too. Or you could simply continue to demand more from this "[quasi-] triumphant band."

 

-Grayson Currin, June 14, 2007

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