Young Widows/Pelican – Split 7″
Temporary Residence Limited

Rating:  

A guitar echos in touching the backdrop, a rumbling of the drums that thunders out a clearing of the dead, then the bass rolls in accompanied by something very different for the darlings of Young Widows, bassist Nick Thieneman does the vocals this time around.

For almost a year now Young Widows have propelled themselves into acclaim and numerous repressings of their most recent full-length ‘Old Wounds’. But Young Widows have done more recently then just secure themselves with tours and some merch money to pay bills. They are shoving in a new wave of indie rock that combines the DC sound with Chicago math rock styling. Oh yeah, there’s some grunge in there. I said it, you knew it, but wouldn’t say it. The metal kids dig it, the indie kids dig it, and the post rock kids dig it. Young Widows are to be dug.

This split 7” offering ‘Mid Western’ never hits some grand exit loudness, it doesn’t need to; there is a story being told, an almost monologue about life in the middle of the country. Nick shouts out covered in effects, “The world looks bigger when your stuck in just one place. The west is searching around again bringing comas for your heads.” Right when the tension can’t be held anymore the song comes to a sudden stop with the shout, “Cut off our ties to the east.”

Pelican’s side is a quick one for them. When your band is known for 6 minute songs one under 4 minutes is a cute jam, a mere nice flirt to make you blush and wonder what’s next. ‘Inch Above the Sand’ is a song of growing, a rush in that is steady. The song feels like something that could have been off of ‘The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw’ album. Of course, this is only the first part of the song.

A silence rushes up to the surface of the song only to be cut down by a sharp riff and the emergence of the new Pelican, the one that showed their new riff based sound on the Ephemeral’ EP on Southern Lord recently. After the pause the riff takes control until the song has given its all. The flirt got a little nasty at the end. Interest peaked.

As is the case with the Young Widow’s split 7”s released recently this is part of a four part series. Once the set is done all the covers can be held together to form one piece of art. No super powers are granted if you glue the covers together. I heard some things too.

This review is courtesy of Matt DeBenedictis – He writes for Noisecreep.com and blogs at http://outthrowingroses.blogspot.com.