What We All Come to Need

iTunes Review

2007’s City of Echoes concerned some long-time Pelican fans (too much nuance! not enough heft!) while winning the band new admirers (such nuance for a “metal” band! so accessible for a “post-metal” band!). Their fourth studio album might seal the deal for both camps. What We All Come to Need is more dynamic, more melodic, and somehow heavier and more powerful at the same time. “Glimmer” does indeed glimmer, more than roar, even with rumbling, monstrous bass lines; “The Creeper” builds on dark atmospherics that give way to coiling, grinding guitar riffs that ultimately imply a bittersweet denouement (guest guitarist Greg Anderson of Sunn 0))) surely adds drama here). Two other tracks comprise a quartet of visceral standouts: “Ephemeral” packs more machine-gun wallop here than on the EP of the same name, and “Specks of Light” races along, guitars buzzing like hornets on speed, only to slowly spiral to a close as it creeps to the eight- minute mark. The final cut breaks typical Pelican rules and features the vocals — not too prominently, one might note — of Allen Epley (Shiner, Life and Times) in a neo-ballad, “Final Breath.”