It’s been four years since Pelican’s most recent full-length, 2009’s
What We All Come to Need, and the band has made some changes since then. The most obvious change is new guitarist Dallas Thomas, who joined the band last year after founding guitarist Laurent Shroeder-Lebec stepped down. The more nuanced change occurred in the band’s music; 2012’s
Attaraxia/Taraxis EP had a much more rock-oriented feel than the doomy atmospherics and crushing riffs of previous efforts by the band. With the emergence of other instrumental bands such as Animals as Leaders, Scale the Summit, and Russian Circles in recent years, many feared Pelican was in danger of becoming an also-ran instead of a leader in the music community.
