Pomegranates

Everybody, Come Outside! (2009)

Brian Shultz

Pomegranates have been developing their brand of atmospheric indie pop for a couple years and at a rather prolific clip at that. They dropped a DIY EP in 2007 and a full-length followup less than a year later. Now, with their newest effort, Everybody, Come Outside!, coming less than another year later, all I gotta say is, slow down, boys.

Despite the short amount of time between efforts, this is a pretty serious stylistic overhaul, with the band playing shimmery, layered tunes that crunch shades of Yo La Tengo's noise-pop into stretched Guided by Voice-esque narratives, only with more post-rock sparkles and saccharine textures. It's a very cool sound, but the songwriting isn't as effective as one would hope. Things feel almost too loose and unstructured -- "Jerusalem Has a Bad Day" drifts for over five minutes before one of the singers randomly enters a semi-spazzy Modest Mouse-ish mode.

Also of note is how writing tight, compact songs was a welcomed trait on earlier efforts -- none of the tracks on 2008's Everything Is Alive exceeded 3:46, while four on Come Outside! go beyond four minutes apiece, to varying levels of success (11-minute closer "I Feel Like I'm a Million Years Old" is nearly all ambience). Even then, the middle tracks are so seamless they often feel like one song, anyway, and may not fully captivate every listener who tries 'em.

While it's nice to hear the band refuse to dial things down, I think they could find stronger ways of conveying things. While everyone should probably stay inside, they might want to at least take a peek through the windows.

Corriander
Everybody, Come Outside!

STREAM
Everybody, Come Outside! at the band's Punknews.org profile page