Pelican : Flickering Resonance Review

By Steven Miller

In the genre-straddling landscape of instrumental post-metal, narrative form can often feel buried under atmospherics. But on Flickering Resonance, written and performed by guitarist Trevor Shelley de Brauw, guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, bassist Bryan Herweg, and drummer Larry Herweg, Pelican opts for something more deliberate: music built like architecture, with movement, pacing, and contrast engineered into each section.

Recorded by Sanford Parker, mixed by Scott Evans, and mastered by Matthew Barnhart, the album’s sonic clarity and dynamic control serve its compositional. This is not music that “develops” in a jam-based sense; it unfolds, built from modules, textures, and tension curves that are clearly planned in both performance and post-production.

Pelican’s formal design often resembles extended arch forms. The form shapes peak in textural or harmonic apexes and resolves with a recomposed coda. On the opener “Gulch,” the song begins with a tightly structured motivic riff that Trevor de Brauw and Laurent Schroeder-Lebec develop through additive layering and staggered entrances. Rather than cycling through discrete sections, the form unfolds through incremental buildup. Bryan Herweg establishes harmonic continuity in the low end, maintaining contour, while Larry Herweg reinforces metric accents that shift subtly in dynamic profile. This track’s form is architectural, think arch-shaped, with recursive materials appearing in altered forms across its timeline.

“Specific Resonance” offer more contrast: the first half is overdriven and rhythmically saturated, then transitions sharply in the middle to feature clean stereo-split guitars and ambient spacing. That variation in the song form is acting as an inflection point before the energy rebuilds. Structurally, this functions like a rotational form in contemporary classical music, recirculating core materials through changing textures.

Throughout the album, the guitar orchestration is rich but tightly controlled. Pelican avoids frequency masking by spacing distorted parts carefully across the stereo field and EQ range. Even when two guitars play harmonized lines, like in the B section of “Indelible,” one is colored with effect and midrange focused while the other leans bright and delayed, giving a sense of interplay without clutter.

“Pining For Ever” leans into articulate distortion with a mix that favors arrangement clarity over brute force. The bass is deliberate in “Wandering Mind,” and this is a fine example of the strong low-end statements on the record. The opening riff frames the track with its round sub-midrange, anchoring the harmonic identity before guitars appear. The build from that point on is an expressive tension-and-release. The song is not driven by melody but by layering, range expansion, and rhythmic compression.

Evans’ mix preserves the width and definition of the layered guitars without sacrificing the bite or weight essential to Pelican’s sound. Distortion sits in a carefully carved midrange pocket, and Sanford Parker’s recording ensures each part, especially Larry Herweg’s drum kit and Bryan Herweg’s bass, remains clear and purposeful across dense passages.

Reverbs are deployed with restraint, often more for contour than ambiance. In “Flickering Stillness,” the clean guitar tones stretch across the stereo field with delay and reverb tails, while the drums remain punchy and present. This creates a visual field for the listener: guitars shimmer in the distance while the rhythm section anchors the body. The decision to keep compression light allows for the album’s most important structural tool, dynamic contrast, to function naturally. Matthew Barnhart’s mastering preserves that range while balancing loudness and low-end depth with finesse.

Flickering Resonance is defined by its space and density management. Despite the heavy genre tag, the band avoids wall-of-sound pitfalls by controlling dynamics across sections. The drums, dry and present in the near field, contrast with the evolving sounds in the stereo spread of the guitars. The mix gives the song’s form clarity by giving the listener spatial cues. Reverbs are used surgically.

Compression is handled thoughtfully with minimal squashing of dynamics for punch, this album keeps peaks and valleys intact. “Cascading Crescent” is a prime example; the initial riff lands with impact, but the breakdown halfway through lets the dynamic range widen, creating an audible contrast that registers emotionally and structurally.

Flickering Resonance is a post-metal instrumental album that has well-crafted forms, textures, and production. The songs are about creating a feeling, and the melodic hooks are understated and guitar solos are understated, creating the space of architectural hooks. Each track is carefully constructed, shaped through iterative layering, structural pacing, and tonal contrast.

If you’re looking for mood-setting instrumental pieces that hold attention through pacing, density, and sonic evolution, Flickering Resonance closely aligns with this pattern. It’s not just about riffs and chord progression; it’s about how those riffs and harmonic densities breathe, return, and change over time.