Every now and then you stumble across a band and the music they are creating seems a perfect fit, a discovery of a sound that makes total sense but until now unexplored.
Poumon are one such band for me, I saw a post on a reddit thread about Death Grips linking me to the excellent and haunting ‘Gardening’ from their previous release. The combination of a hard edged trip hop feel, strung out lazy flow on the vocals and trippy visuals instantly clicked with me. I quickly located their at the time current release ‘Dig In Me’ which apart from some live performances and ‘Gardening’ they have since to have largely deemed redundant.
There were definitely some moments on the record such as the claustrophobic, noisy ‘Inner Pig’ but overall it felt like the band were still seeking to define the boundaries of their sound.
However now with the release of ‘Perfect Judas’ they seem to have confidently put this behind them. Marketed as their debut album it is a heady mix with strong call backs to trip-hop classics such as Massive Attack’s ‘Mezzanine’, pushed to its logical extremes. However, there is more to the band than this and at times the album recalls experimental nu-metal sounds like Deftones, all wrapped in pristine, noisy yet dark production.
In the centre are the vocals of the band member referred to as ‘Holeteeth’, varying from melodic singing, hazy rapping to throat curdling screams. The pair play to each others strengths well using the variety of vocal styles coupled with the noisier elements of their sound to build to effective crescendos, then at other times deliberately avoiding such moments of release.
It all speaks very much to an act I’m sure, in the right environment are a formidable live, an aural and visual assault on the senses.
To mention a few tracks starting with the title track, with its slowly rising noise ending up sounding like a trip hop version of Korn, or ‘My little shore’ which feels like the bands version of a ballad with a bassline that once again echoes to Massive Attack leading to a epic layered conclusion.
This leads into what is probably my favourite track on the album ‘Your body is dead’, repetitive vocals lock into an instrumental groove that slowly expands in sound before cutting back to a haunted breakdown right at the expected moment of climax, before returning to the groove.
All in all a very exciting release which most of all makes me hope to see the band live soon.
Record is now available at http://poumonmusic.bandcamp.com