I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a band’s sound evolve as quickly as the Pomegranates. While the change has occurred over the course of three albums, they all came out within a 30-month span.
From the release of Everything Is Alive in May 2008, through Everybody, Come Outside! in April 2009 to One of Us in October of last year, the Pomegranates have steadily progressed from a pseudo-Modest Mouse knock-off to a much tighter band that churns out dreamy, ethereal pop.
While I’m not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to Modest Mouse, their influence is unmistakable on the Pomegranates’ debut album. Several reviewers on Amazon noted that Everything Is Alive sounded especially like early Modest Mouse. Except that it’s stripped of all the annoyances and glitchy effects, which makes it far more digestible than most of the music the Mouseketeers usually put out.
The follow-up album is noticeably smoother than its predecessor. It has more going on sonically, and, judging from some of the electro tinges, it’s no surprise that the producer of the album has also worked with MGMT.
It still has some of that Modest Mouse vibe interspersed throughout — especially on “Jerusalem Had a Bad Day”, which sounds like a lost single from the quirky Seattleites, and “This Used To Be My Land, But Now I Hate This Land”.
But the overall tone starts to head toward the dreamier end of the spectrum on songs such as “384 BC”. The highlight of the album is the opening title track.
Pomegranates – Everybody, Come Outside!
By the time they released One of Us in 2010, the band had almost completely made the transition to ambient pop. On many of the songs, especially “Prouncer”, the band calls to mind such contemporaries as Wild Nothing, Beach House, Lower Dens and The XX.
They also produced more single-worthy tracks, such as “50’s” and “Skull Cakin'”.
According to their Wikipedia page, the Pomegranates are set to release another album later this year. That certainly wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for this Cincinnati crew. But whenever their next album does drop, I can’t wait to hear the next step in the evolution of their sound.
Infinite Shuffle 
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