Album review: Pelican – Flickering Resonance

It's been six years since Pelican last released a record, 2019’s Nighttime Stories, a period in which guitarist Dallas Thomas left the band and was replaced by returning founding member Laurent Schroeder-Lebec. What impact Laurent’s return has brought to this seventh album will only be discernible to superfans of the Chicago post-metallers, but that’s not essential to a new listener’s enjoyment of a band of such sterling consistency as they.

If you’re that way inclined, though, after the musical variety of Nighttime Stories – itself an album released after a six-year absence – Flickering Resonance ploughs a more consistent sonic furrow. This might seem like a criticism on the grounds of blinkered tinkering, but given how muscular and mesmeric said furrow proves, it isn’t. Because it still manages to encompass a broad range of influences, from dreamy alt.rock (Gulch) to hulking doom (Indelible, Cascading Crescent), post-hardcore (Flickering Stillness), to shimmering prog (Wandering Mind).

Unlike its predecessor, which was written separately and remotely, Flickering Resonance is less fragmented in its execution. So while reference points occasionally bubble to the surface, they’re as seamless components rather than diverting nods, the fruits of four men’s melding magnificence, as opposed to their creative push and pull.

Either way, this is an energising work. Flickering Resonance is a record that’s always stridently pushing forwards, powerfully and positively, while capturing its authors continuing to operate at the peak of their powers, regardless of the band’s iteration. It’s not the sound of flickering brilliance, but a roaring fire of it that will burn long in the memory.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Baroness, Russian Circles, Isis

Flickering Resonance is released on May 16 via Run For Cover