Cozing the Resisting Dreamer
Super-Group (su-pa-gru-p) lazy journalist noun. 1. Collective artists of various acts formed on advice of a) PR company b) all available members of bands of yonder year with a pulse c) Mark Ronson. E.g. ‘All supergroups are shite’. (For shite please refer to Mark Ronson.
Right, it’s time for a confession. I love Pelican. I don’t listen enough to other people’s opinions to be able to base this opinion on those of others. Are Pelican still cool? I hope so.
Anyway, pretty much since its release, I’ve given ‘The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw’ a listen as much as possible. It’s a great record, and I love. The thing with instrumental rock, and I do love instrumental rock, is, sometimes you can’t help but wander ‘what if’?
What if ‘Every Red Heart Shines Towards The Red Sun’ had vocals? What if ‘Colma’ had just the smallest touch of crooning? What if Dave Martone could stick to a theme? All great albums, but were they necessarily missing some kind of wailing over the top? In the most part, no. Take ‘The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place’. If you had someone singing over that, you’d have ‘Takk’. Never, ever aim for ‘Takk’.
Back to Tusk. ‘Resisting Dreamer is basically the answer to the above paragraph. 75% of Pelican (Trevor de Brauw, Larry Herweg and Laurent Lebec) have roped in Evan Patterson (Young Widows) and Toby Driver (Kayo Dot) to create one track, which is effectively set over 4 chapters.
‘Resisting Dreamer’ combines everything that I love about ‘Pelican’. The grinding sludgy sound of the guitar and bass mixed with something new: An aggression, a hint of danger that can only really be portrayed through voice. 40 minutes of menace waiting to pop its head from behind the bushes, but never does, leaving the listener pleading for more.
Although split over 4 tracks, this albums stands alone as a single piece of music. Only when ‘The lewdness and Frenzy of Surrender’ slowly grinds to a halt with its incessant drones, does the listener get the impression that this masterpiece is coming to an end.
Sometimes, side projects and super groups just don’t hit the right notes. They exist solely on the reputation of the bands which preceded them. Rarely, if at all, do original projects learn anything from them. Yet, you get the feeling with this particular effort that there is something to be learned. An absolutely startling display of everything Pelican could and perhaps should be.