Pelican Show-3/26/09

Smoke, beer, and dudes with hair longer than their girlfriends. What does it add up to? The swirling synthetic synopsis of a metal show with the headliner Pelican, ending the chaos like triumphant Norse raiders pillaging their conquered stage. Residual effects would be the show, primary causes would be their new album. But in this case the residual effects mesmerize the crowd with droning chants of distorted splendor. And then…

Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder, the bass player only says, ‘Check’. Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder, sound waves slice your shins. Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder the pace resurrects, again. Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder, double bass detonates like cannons from a warship. Just when you thought it could not get louder, the guitar player switches the overdrive on, Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder your ears feel like their bleeding…hearts alive, ears dying, hearts alive, music still going.

These four men were as samurai gods of metal music, blasting through beats with shinobi like precision. Lighting from the gods in heaven cracks the pavement of the crowd with melodies deeply intoxicating. Never have I seen a guitar player so rhythmically meticulous. Drummer so subtly supportive. If Pelican was an ancient Greek temple the drums would be the mighty pillars holding up the outside, strong, sure, confident. The guitar players were as mirrored echoes of the sacrifice resounding in the halls of the temple. A mirror because they play with an afflicted precision. Echoes because they continually faded in and out of the glory of the solo. Both catalytically combining to combust the sweeping fury of raw glory prophesied before the origins of the mammoth to abolish silence and arrest all consciousness. Inauguration complete, Pelican has taken the stage.