THE FIRE IN OUR THROATS WILL BECKON THE THAW

At last I got into Pelican’s early stuff! This album grows on me. It has been in my CD-player more than 10 times, moreover, my Hi-Fi has nearly blown up because of the storms and squalls of rich Pelican’s sound – and well, it beats hell.

A lot of reviewers already wrote the cover suits the music perfectly, and I agree with it as well. We can see a very sad picture of white and grey clouds, all in cold and chilled colours. Pelican’s music is as grey and cold as the weather painted on the cover, in exactly the same way.

It’s too difficult to describe Pelican’s music; you just need to listen to it, to feel, to sense it, to realize that this is the music you have to delve into. I did it and now I am sure that this music is for me, I really reached the idea – and it’s so great when you realize that you at last found exactly what you had been dreaming to find about for years. It is as if you discovered the whole island. But still I’ll try to introduce you to the world of Pelican’s music.

If to speak about influences the first band which comes to my mind is Explosions In The Sky. So just imagine as if EitS played by far heavier and diverse – and you’ll get a surely post-metal band Pelican. I also have to draw a parallel between Pelican and Isis, as their music has a little in common. I noticed that Pelican has a habit of writing at least one unplugged (acoustic) song for each album, and these songs are not out of place and have their special significance.

The album starts with an increasing boom. This is Last Day of Winter. Guitars start playing some introductory riffs. At 2:00 there is a change and we follow the development of the song in tremor. At 6:30 or so the song reaches its climax – the squall of sound attacks our ears. It’s indescribable.

I wonder if the drummer has such a manner to play the drums passing ahead and being slow now and then or he just losing touch with band’s other members? Autumn Into Summer has a lot of beautiful passages, and being once again a song with a sad feel, nevertheless, gives hopes and radiates joy somehow by means of some guitars riffs. I read on Pelican’s website that they always try to write their music, which will resemble a flight of a pelican (a bird). They make the best of it – I really imagined, unintentional, a pelican flying far in the sky with spread wings while listening to their music! :)

March To The Sea, being my favourite song by Pelican, is an epic, a monster epic. Every time I listen to it in a gulp - it’s just perfect, outstanding, and incredible. All the parts are logically connected, the feel of the song changes from time to time, but overall it is threatening, warning, very strained. The moment between 5:50 and 6:25 contains my most favourite riffs. The climax of the song is one of the best post-rock songs’ climaxes I’ve ever heard. More details about the very song can be found in my further “March Into The Sea [EP]” review.

Untitled is an acoustic song, quite a cool one, but it’s just the calm before the storm. Red Ran Amber has some quick guitar riffs at the beginning; the middle of the song is an ambient break (at once recalled Silence Kit’s song called Apple); and a long and mellow section at the end of it with great climax. Aurora Borealis is quite a short song in terms of post-rock and, to my mind, is just a more relaxing song (in vein of modern Pelican), without tense riffs and complex moments. Sirius closes the album perfectly – beginning with soft and soothing sounds, at 2:00 the song turns into a heavy and doomy section, which develops till 4:50. The album finishes with an increasing boom, just like it began (maybe some concept or cycling idea, if it’s possible to say like that?)

The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw is certainly the album which deserves five stars. It is the most complicated and melancholic album by Pelican so far. A must-have for post-rock and post-metal fans. Don’t lose the chance to discover an island.

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