Pelican

The master craftsmen of avant-metal instrumentation shorten up their usual epics and tighten their massive tonnage of riffs on City of Echoes. Playing their instruments like a Jenga game, Pelican strategically stack every note and beat. Juxtaposing thick, visceral guitars with gentle fingerpicking, they never let their amplified tower of sound topple over into a heap of discordance. While sustaining their thick-skinned intensity with powerhouse tracks "Bliss in Concrete" and "Dead Between the Walls," they press slow-mo for "A Delicate Sense of Balance" and the acoustic "With the Hands."