Pooma – Persuader
Next Big Thing, 2008 | buy the mp3s
The press release for Pooma’s debut album draws comparisons to bands like Sigur Rós and Múm, adding that “as they come from Finland, they take the Scandinavian melancholy even a step further.” This is attractive shorthand, but it doesn’t quite do the band justice. Although Persuader was produced by Múm’s Gunnar Örn Tynes, there is none of the tinker-toy quirk and playfulness that defined much of the Icelandic band’s output. Pooma makes emotional music for the big screen that lives in the neighborhood of Seefeel’s stormy weather and Sugar Plant’s narcotic vocals. There’s an occasional flicker of classic Slowdive, although the Helsinki band frequently wanders from the template of proper shoegaze into noisier territory.

Frayed drums, thick ribbons of guitar, and electric crackle round out the body of each song. Tuire Lukka’s slinky vocals often kick into overdrive, burning at the edges, and sometimes the band rocks a little too hard – “All Worked Out” ends in a blast of frightening white noise and “Persuader” throws up a screeching wall of sound that climaxes in the usual ringing feedback and trashed guitars. Slower tracks like “The Shore” drift and wander before erupting into a crush of drums four minutes down the road. But when Pooma falls into a mid-tempo groove, they send out beautiful waves of frosty dream pop. You’ll hear it in the drums and drone of “If May Starts Tomorrow”, the eerie country swagger of “They Won’t Come Back”, and the lost highway noir of “Through the Calm,” a track that pulls off a dozen tricks at once: ominous guitar strums, processed vocals, bursts of digital feedback, quiet moments with a cello, a music box melody, and so on.

With popping vinyl, rewound bass loops, and scuffles of white noise, there’s an intense attention to detail throughout the album could be mistaken for slickness if the guts of each song weren’t so raw and ambitious. Although there aren’t any sing-along anthems here, Persuader rides a line between polished dream pop and an experimental soundtrack for brooding, and it’s a line worth following.

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Pooma - If May Starts Tomorrow
from Persuader | buy the CD | buy the mp3s

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Pooma – Cool Inside
from Persuader | buy the CD | buy the mp3s