Instrumental metal standard bearers Pelican had a thundering comeback, with “Forever Becoming” in 2013, an eight-song album, that offer´s Pelican´s most refined work to date.
Before their hiatus, the group had laid a sizeable chunk of the groundwork for the instrumental metal scene that’s come into its own in the 17 years since they started playing together.
After 2009 the band found itself slightly adrift, and found the day to day struggle of being full-time underground musicians colliding with new families and non-musical careers. Wisely, they didn’t make any rash decisions, and as suits a band known for making dense, meditative sounds they simply patiently figured out how to move past their obstacles.
This reborn Pelican is purer, more focused, and far more assured.
A head-on ascent of the biggest, most monolithic theme in art is no easy feat
It takes a lot of experience and a lot of confidence to attempt such an immense, speaker-rattling meditation on the infinite cycle of death and life.
Pelican has plenty of both, and knows how to wield them in a way that is second to none to any band, that has surfaced from the international post metal scene.
Pelican have recently released a free live album, “Live At The Bottle” on their bandcamp site:
pelican.bandcamp.com
Back in 2005, an unknown heavy rock trio from Fargo, North Dakota, released a self-titled demo on a CD-R, and it turned out to be a record that just wouldn’t go away. Egypt’s Egypt smoldered for the next several years on the basis of underground word-of-mouth, to the point that Lyderhorn Records put it out on vinyl in 2007 and cult stoner imprint MeteorCity picked it up for a CD release in 2009. By then, it had outlasted the band who called it quits in 2006.
They reunited for a one-off hometown gig in May 2010, “Become the Sun” was released early in 2013 on Doomentia Records vinyl and Totem Cat Records CD and widely lauded by media and fans, selling out initial pressings of both formats.
There’s nothing happenstance about it, and in an age where word can travel faster than it ever has, Egypt have slow-burned their way to the fore of the American stoner rock underground. 2016 saw the release of “Endless Flight”, a stoner album of epic proportions and “their best work to-date, hands down” according to the Obelisk.
Egypt are just beginning to shape their empire.
Arena Vienna / small hall / adv 16 € / doors 19 € / 20.00h
roadtriptoouttaspace.com 