PELICAN - Nighttime Stories (Sealed) (CD)

The instrumental metal quartet’s first album in six years grapples directly with loss and grief, channeling dueling guitars and pummeling rhythms into a dire, haunted sound. The last time Pelican put an album out, there was still only one Avengers movie. A lot has happened to the members of the Chicago/L.A. instru-metal quartet since then—side and solo projects, the deaths of family members and former bandmates, the birth of children. It’s heavy stuff. And Nighttime Stories is a heavy record. Maybe their heaviest to date, despite its titular promise of soothing sleepytime music.