THE FIRE IN OUR THROATS WILL BECKON THE THAW (BY) PELICAN

Post-Metal / Sludge / Atmospheric
Released 2005

I was recently having a discussion with some peers about which albums most influenced our lives — albums that have not only stuck with us, but after first discovering them, drastically affected what music we listen to and how we listen to it.  I can pinpoint many albums that were, in retrospect, important to my current tastes, but most of them were simple progressions of things I was already listening to, another evolutionary link.  Other albums got me into new habits — my flirtations with metal were spread out over multiple years and many extremely different albums — but didn't themselves make a lasting impression, and in retrospect only presented a few easily-digested morsels that encouraged me to pursue new things, new tastes.

When a friend introduced me to The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw in the spring of my junior year of college, the timing couldn't have been more perfect.  For a few months, I had been seeking out experimental, heavy music. I already had a hunch then that I would never be a real metal-head, but I liked a lot of the things metal bands were doing, even if I was having a hard time getting past the often-difficult vocals.  Though I'd been occasionally listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor since high school, I didn't really have awareness of instrumental music at that point.  GY!BE still seemed to me like a soundtrack lacking a movie, and like most people, I didn't understand why a band would decide to remain instrumental.  So Pelican came out of nowhere — I had truly never heard anything like it before.

Now, kids these days can easily describe entire subgenres of instrumental metal by the degree to which they rip off of Pelican (and other forebears of the post-metal movement), but hearing such a thing for the first time, or describing it to someone else, is like trying to explain to a blind man what "green" looks like.  I remember once telling my father that Pelican reminded me of Pink Floyd — a comparison that's so laughably erroneous four years later, I haven't the slightest idea what I might I have been referring to.  The Fire In Our Throats is, for lack of a better word, glacial — not usually a word I'd use to describe music, but I can't think of anything else that fits so well.  It's cold and stark and huge, slow-moving and dense, but most importantly, it's a glacier in retreat, one leaving behind a vision of spring and growth and possibility.  There's a deep-rooted, earthy sense of beauty in Pelican's music, little touches of warmth and grace amidst all the thundering walls of riffage and distortion, not to mention their extremely unique, perfect executed acoustic transitions.  Amidst the calamity, The Fire In Our Throats evokes the sense that one has finally reached The Last Day of Winter (and whatdayaknow, that's the name of the first song!)  Within such an unsubtle musical style, it's an unexpected touch of subtlety that other bands trying to bogart Pelican's thunderous tone seem to completely miss.  A wall of sound becomes boring eventually — we want to be led somewhere, and sludge-metal is at best a way to move us.  Where many other post-rockers tend to paint a scene that's other-worldly, or post-worldly, The Fire In Our Throats is intensely familiar.  Rather than nostalgia, it evokes a sense of expectation.  It somehow makes the air around you feel fucking crisp.  If you listen to it in winter, you will feel striking disappointment when you step outside and see a gray, snow-filled sky.  Studies show playing it once a day will cause plants to grow 34% faster.  (It's science!)

One particular memory perfectly captures all the feelings that Pelican still evokes in me.  As I said before, the timing of my discovery couldn't have been more perfect.  It was spring.  Metal is generally considered depressive stuff, but Pelican is anything but.  That winter had been a particularly difficult time of my life, and it's no exaggeration to say that I felt totally buried in frustrations and anxieties.  Timid music wasn't going to do anything to move me, but The Fire In Our Throats is as uplifting and inspiring as it is loud.  Like spring, there's a sense that mounds of filth are being washed away — forcefully, cathartically, and jarringly.  I needed that, then, and so I took a walk on the first day of spring, past all the sun-tanning sorority girls and shirtless jock douchemonkeys, and went down to the Hudson.  It felt good to get off campus and out of sight.  I found a spot above a cliff and watched car-sized chunks of ice floating down the river, I stared at the mountains that surrounded me, and I realized just how fucking much I loved the Hudson River Valley — everything except that small vortex of suck that was Poughkeepsie.  I could feel the cold whenever the breeze picked up, but it was still warm enough to wear a t-shirt.  And somehow, Pelican was playing exactly what I was feeling and seeing — without words.  I had never experienced that from music before. Suddenly I was getting punched in the face by a sort of frontiersman's spirit, awed by the severity of nature and music with the ability to capture it as textures and sounds.  I felt, dare I say, inspired.

So, Pelican got me into instrumental music, heavy music, and oddly enough, hiking.  (Cool story, bro).  The sense of gravitas and yearning their music evokes has never worn off, and I always feel an urge to put it on when I venture out to Upstate New York.  Sadly, their last two releases have been solidly mediocre, and their sound has since been regurgitated by dozens of bands, bottled and packaged as a tepid subgenre.  It's obvious in retrospect that Pelican's strengths also demand a rather inflexible formula, and after creating such a perfectly-executed landmark album, they'd basically written themselves into a corner.  (I should note that their first album, Australasia, is nearly on par with The Fire In Our Throats, yet presents a markedly different atmosphere).  The Fire In Our Throats still stands as one of the most evocative and emotional albums in my collection, a testament to the (seldom-realized) fact that beautiful music doesn't have to be timid or cloying.