Pomegranates: We could have escaped (2008), Lujo Records

Pomegranates: Everybody, come outside! (2009), Lujo Records

Se acaba de publicar el segundo álbum de la banda de Ohio Pomegranates, que lleva por título Everybody, come outside! La música del grupo tiene un claro ascendiente Pop en la música de muchos grupos indies de los ochenta, léase Talking Heads, especialmente, o visos de Brian Eno. Su sonido es cristalino y a ratos brillante, mezclando esas influencias con algunos toquecitos Twee (This land used to be my land, but now I hate this land; Sail away with me) o nuevaoleros (Beachcomber, Southern ocean). Por momentos nos pueden recordar a bandas paisanas como Bishop Allen, o a gentes como The Boy Least Likely To, aunque personalmente opino que les falta la brillantez y la frescura de éstos.

“Everybody, Come Outside! shows a marked improvement both creatively and sonically from its predecessor, channeling influences that range from Talking Heads and Brian Eno, to French Kicks and Fela Kuti. It’s a conceptual album of sorts, weaving an interesting tale of a man who leaves home, only to be abducted by a time traveler. Each of the 11 tracks of ECO! add to the mystique, as well as reveal a bit more about this unusual tale. Pomegranates is Jacob Merritt (drums, percussion), Joey Cook (vocals, guitar, keys, bass), Josh Kufeldt (bass, electric guitar) and Isaac Karns (guitar, bass, sampling, vocals, keys). Everybody, Come Outside! was recorded by Pomegranates and mixed and mastered by TJ Lipple of Aloha (MGMT, Headlights, Minus Story)”. (Nota de su MySpace)

“From the big echoey chords that kick it off to the the 13 minutes of folkiness and ambient sound that close it, one thing is clear: This is not just a collection of songs. It is a single work, a musical story. To be sure, any track could stand on its own and no one is like another. Yet, the album is far more cohesive than any formula could produce and its wild energy comes from experimentation in not just the music, but the soul. Most bands are contained by the genres from which the draw their influences. Pomegranates effortlessly ingest guitar pop, walls of jangle, sweet indie pop, punk agitation, gentle folk, mathy precision and wild psychedelia, yet the album is so big that it contains these rather than being contained by them. Likewise, the musicianship is amazing on Everybody, Come Outside!, yet that is easily lost in the work itself, because each note, each passage serves the bigger picture. As with all great art, the work takes precedence over the artist, despite the work’s artistic ambition” (glidemagazine.com)

MySpace