Pelican, highly influential and possibly one of the greatest post-rock instrumentalists to ever record and perform, has long eluded genre classification. The band has just released a two-song EP that marks its first new music since 2019 and its first songs written with the band’s original lineup since 2012. “Adrift” and “Tending the Embers” mark both a reunion and a departure, eschewing the caustic bombast of 2019’s Nighttime Stories for more delicate and nuanced territory that imbibes their pastoral Midwest post-rock tendencies with triumphant riffs that pay homage to the classic Dischord pantheon.

Since reuniting with founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec in 2022, Pelican has been playing career-spanning live sets in support of Thrill Jockey’s expanded reissues of the group’s first three albums. Energized by the initial run of shows and the invitation to record a pair of cover songs for Numero Group’s 25th anniversary, the band began writing again in early 2023. As the surplus of material began to amass and it became clear there was more than an album’s worth of material taking shape, the band booked studio time with longtime collaborator Sanford Parker in order to share the burgeoning new direction with fans sooner than later. The resulting two-song EP is available digitally from all DSPs and as a limited edition tape exclusively from the band’s Bandcamp page.