Pelican have dropped the "Adrift" / "Tending the Embers" EP, which marks the instrumental quartet's first new music since 2019 and their first songs written with the band's OG lineup since 2012. The release follows up Pelican's 2023 covers of Karate and Unwound, both recorded for Numero Group's 25th anniversary.
In contrast to the instrumental metal sound that the Chicago-bred band is best known for — and that can be heard on their last original offering, 2019's Nighttime Stories LP — the two new songs lean into Pelican's self-described "pastoral Midwest post-rock tendencies."
Stream "Adrift" and "Tending the Embers" below via Bandcamp.
Pelican reunited with founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec in 2022, and that year, the reconstituted band played career-spanning live sets in support of Thrill Jockey's expanded reissues of their first three albums, 2003's Australasia, 2005's The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw and 2007's City of Echoes.
Those shows, in addition to the two 2023 covers, inspired the group to start writing new music together. "Adrift" and "Tending the Embers" are the first fruits of those labors.
