Pelt
I figured this one did the rounds last week and it was best to let it sink into the senses before giving it a go here. Pelt and its surrounding aura of player have been woven into the DNA of the site since the very beginning and its great to see them still carving at the raw block of Americana. The band channels the tremors in the soil on Resistance Reticence. The opener, “Diglossia” pushes the dissonance of disillusion into the forefront, digesting the lines between Appalachia and the ashram. The blurred boundaries of jazz and folk intensify, rooting the track in a constant thrum of harmonium as the only anchor back towards the firm ground. Here, Pelt is a storm feeding on the electricity in the air,
The storm recedes as they creep into the second side’s suite, opening with a Jack Rose composition before Gangloff’s fiddle begins to peel layers from the psyche. The meditative pulse suggests patience, openness, but as the tonality of the fiddle warps around the listener the serenity that began on “Sundogs” is frayed. While the first composition is fraught with dirt, debris and discordance, the second side is blown to the air — a piece of wind and mind, wholly detached from Earthen concerns. As it moves into the third portion, the band joins, rising like a misted sun over the mountain.
The band are folk incarnate, songs sprung from the heart of a national Ouroboros — turbulent in one breath, sanguine in another, strung between poles. For years Pelt have found ways to be both cosmic and terrestrial — a force of nature that pushes the boundaries of the mind, but one that always returns to root among the debris left behind. Resistance Reticence is Pelt at their most engrossing, a record that’s exploratory in its approach and magnetic in its execution.
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