Chicago’s instrumental rockers Pelican just finished recording a new album yesterday — or so the band members said. They played some new and some familiar songs at a show at Subterranean, which was suitably loud. Strangely, some guy in the audience kept kelling, “Play something heavy! Enough ballads!” Ballads? Maybe the music was too subtle for him. The first band of the night was Suicide Note, which was metal with the vocals intact. Not bad. And then came Lichens, aka Rob Lowe of 90 Day Men and Dreamweapon, doing drony trance rock, complete with some pretty amazing high-pitched singing and tape loops. There was an actual old-school tape-echo machine operating on the stage, which was oddly entrancing if you looked close at it. It was a very dimly lit concert, which necessitated using flash, not my favorite way to photograph bands, but oh well. Click here or on the image above to see my photos of Pelican, Suicide Note and Lichens.