Pelican played Great Scott – 10/19
Self-described “post-everything instrumental band” Pelican returned to Boston for the first time in four years on Saturday night, headlining a sold-out show at Great Scott with the accompaniment of Phantom Glue and Kings Destroy.
That “post-everything” tag originates from the band’s Twitter account; it’s a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the semi-meaningless genre buzzwords that music writers like myself either employ or make up to efficiently describe someone’s sound. In the case of Pelican, the group’s instrumental nature tends to tie them to the post-rock genre, or the even more nebulous “post-metal.” To see a Pelican performance, however, is to highlight the band’s distance from the obvious hallmarks of those classifications. Though a good number of their songs extend toward the ten-minute mark and beyond, they deftly avoid relying on the quiet-to-loud crescendo formula. Instead, Pelican tends to punch you in the gut from the get-go. There’s a certain chugging momentum present from the first seconds of each song, even when they start out in a less pummeling place than they end.
The ‘gut punch’ aspect of Pelican’s sound was especially pronounced during this set at Great Scott. This show was loud. Not just rock concert loud – three-full-stack-amplifiers-on-a-tiny-stage-five-feet-from-your-head kind of loud. It was positively ear-splitting, but in the grand tradition of the Sunn O)))s and the Swans of the world, the volume brought a welcome physical impact to the music. For being so loud, it was that much more immersing.
Volume, of course, was not the only trick up the band’s sleeve. The quartet, composed of guitarists Trevor de Brauw and Dallas Thomas, bassist Bryan Herweg and drummer Larry Herweg, were an incredibly tight and cohesive unit. From the depths of sludgy ultra-heaviness to the soaring heights, and at the occasional atmospheric interludes in between, the band was totally in sync and on-point. It was rather enthralling to witness, and though their hour-plus set lasted until nearly 1 a.m., the room remained packed until the very end. Pelican are seasoned veterans in the 13th year of their career, and it shows.
As for the earlier bands rounding out the night, both Boston’s Phantom Glue and New York’s Kings Destroy delivered satisfying doses of heaviness. Phantom Glue’s sludgy, abrasive sound was totally commanding, while Kings Destroy brought personality to their brand of stoner doom via emotive vocalist Steve Murphy and guitarist Carl Porcaro, who seemed to take glee in repeatedly kicking over the stage-front monitors.
Who could ask for more than a rock-solid three-act metal show on a Saturday night?
Full photo gallery here.