A band’s name doesn’t carry much weight with me. Too often the moniker has some odd genesis that has little to do with anything, giving no clue what one can expect upon first listen. I’ve recently come across bands with terrible names (Soft Science) who put out solid records — you simply can’t trust an album by the name on the cover.
But every once in a while, a kismet of name, sound and feel merge, and while the results don’t always enthrall, they somehow make sense. This is clarion for Pomegranate, a long-standing three-man band from Oakland, California, named after the mythical “fruit of the dead” which plays a sludgy mix of rock and pop apropos as a background soundtrack in the Underworld.
On its six-song EP Ahead and Behind, its first release in several years, Pomegranate does its best imitation of Pearl Jam and Bush if they were on barbiturates, plodding through three and a half minute songs like tires stuck in mud. Just speeding up the tracks could give them added life, a boost they sorely need.
The opening “Set In Motion” sets the torpid pace, a repetitive, arpeggio guitar arrangement set against typical snare drums, joined by lead singer’s Gavin Canaan lingering lyrics and dry delivery. Is it just me, or is it lazy for the initial song lyrics to include the name of the song and the album? “Set in Motion,” Canaan sings at song’s outset, “Color all ahead and behind.” Can’t say for sure why it irked me so, but it did.
Some songs attempt to dodge their brooding with lively, poppy choruses, except it all sounds ordinary and done before. “Corner Of My Eye” is an OK tune until you realize Eddie Vedder and crew has done the same song a million times better. It’s best when your originals don’t sound like covers of better-known bands.
“Dustbowl Dreams” is the sole song with any inventive tinge, it burns with a slowed-down Southern drawl and ZZ Top guitar hook. Canaan finds added depth beyond the tempered snarl he employs through most of the album, ranging with screeches and well-timed whines. But even this song has issues, ending with a cliche cymbal and bass drum flourish you’d find at the close of any rock gig anywhere.
I get the sense the band, after several stops and starts during its 15-year career, has lost its way only to stumble back onto well-trodden territory. Ahead and Behind is half right — there’s nothing forward about it at all.
