3 out of 5

Label: Southern Lord

Producer: Chris Common

So Laurent Schroeder-Lebec is no longer here on guitar, citing a lack of ‘heart’ for his own commitment during the Ataraxia sessions… with which I would agree, since I found that EP like a Pelican tribute disc and not sounding full-on like the band.  Chris Common is back in the producer’s saddle (he didn’t work on A / T, perhaps accounting for how flat that recording sounded to me), and there’s definitely a sense of the relationship growing from ‘What We All Come to Need’ to here.  Common is, I think, a good pick for the group in their Southern Lord rock format; ‘All Come to Need’ didn’t really give Common much room to work his work, but on ‘Forever’ we’re finally letting some of the cymbal crashes really ring out (the drum work on ‘Deny the Absolute’s main passage sounds stunning due to this) and the new guitar duo has seemed to allow for some interesting layering (check ‘Immutable Dusk’s ending blast) that’s a bit more rich than the immediate high / low guitar path previously employed.  But despite Dallas Thomas of The Swan King joining to replace Schroeder-Lebec and causing Pelican to develop a new writing style (per my readings), ‘Forever’ is still a few steps shy of, womp, becoming a force to reckon with and forming a definable face for PLCN’s stylistic shift.  Certainly the loss of a key member shakes things up, but the group has obviously been wrasslin’ with that heavy metal tag since their first EP, eager to incorporate acoustics and softer sections to challenge themselves and, perhaps, prove something to their listeners.  I feel like Pelican has found themselves in a ‘fortunate’ position of spotlight where they’re going to be respected regardless of what they do.  Since my opinion is, obviously, the truth, though, you’ll listen when I say that I feel like they’ve floundered since jumping from Hydra Head in pursuit of a new sound.  ‘What We All Come to Need’ was fairly unremarkable to me, then the blandness of ‘Ataraxia.’  Some moments on ‘Forever’ sound like the latter – middle tracks ‘Threnody’ and ‘The Cliff’ are just sorta’ wandering extended pieces that can be plugged in anywhere – and the last track, ‘Perpetual Dawn’ is embarrassingly like some kind of instrumental standard template – quiet, pretty tinkling for 7 minutes now LOUD PRETTY TINKLING for 2 minutes – like you’d find on a Godspeed! disc and call genius because you’ve never heard any other music before.  (Perhaps I’ve never been impressed by Godspeed!.  Doth it show?)

However, there are some excellent moments here that show hints of how this new Pelican could take shape.  ‘The Tundra’ and ‘Dusk’ are proof of the restraint of (again, according to article a’readins) Dallas Thomas’ reportedly ‘tighter’ writing style, as these are long passages in a somewhat classic PLCN format that are stripped of the post-explosion riff noodling that helped to solidify the sludge metal feel.  That slight tweak helps Common to place some focus on the production and give Larry Herweg minutes to pound his bass drum to shit; the build is totally worth it on these tracks in a quite different way from earlier albums.  But the best songs, to me, are the ones where they sort of ditch the whole slow instrumental gig and actually rock out.  ‘Deny the Absolute’ is almost like a punk blast and the 7-minute ‘Vestiges’ proves this mentality of all forward momentum can be applied over the 4-minute mark.

So while ‘Forever Becoming’ still isn’t the album that grabs and rattles me like any of their Hydra Head discs – meaning, for better or worse, I wouldn’t be so eager for new Pelican material if the Southern Lord stuff was what introduced me to them – having followed the group since that lovely first EP, this is the first recording in several years that makes me believe they’re still interested in growing as a group and aren’t just uncomfortably trying to shove off that metal tag.

(On a last note, I sorta’ want to call b.s. on the whole narrative structure of the disc and the group’s claims (and the Allmusic reviewer’s taint-tickling repetition of) the notion that tracks end, purposefully, in a much different place from where they begin and that this represents some kind of emotional travelogue and yadda yadda.  Perhaps if I studied musical theory I’d jump on that ship and sail it down to Wank-tze River, but to my uneducated ears, pausing to change to a different riff and then pausing to combine that riff with the original riff is sorta’ what bands have been doing for a long time.  I have no doubt that the band believes in the structure and put it in place.  I just don’t find it very apparent.  It doesn’t affect the listen either way except that it made me want to say this.)