Fans will quickly notice that City Of Echoes is Pelican's "pop" album, 80 percent succinct and sporadically bordering on modern hard rock without any epic waits for heaviness or acousti-filler mood pieces.  Full text...

City of Echoes is the anti-Pelican; however, it does retain some of the band's trademark qualities.   Full text...

Shorter songs and a heavier emphasis on acoustic melodies doesn’t detract away from the patented Pelican sludge metal sound, although the shorter songs will have Pelican fans turning away in disgust. Not be disregarded though, a stunning listen.  Full text...

Without lyrics to dissect, and with such heavy-handed instrumentation, there's never been a lot of room for Pelican to show much of a sense of humor. Presumably, a song title like "Spaceship Broken - Parts Needed" is as much of an outlet as Pelican can afford themselves, but the song itself, dense and complex with melody, really does find the group boldly cruising new waters. These are not pink flamingos. Fly, Pelican, indeed.  Full text...

The main change is shorter songs. Pelican tired of playing 10-minute epics live, so only the title track here exceeds seven minutes. The results are mixed. On one hand, the songs are more "focused" in that they afford less time for attention to wander. On the other hand, they've lost the potential for transcendence.  Full text...

That's it: Fire the drummer.  Full text...