Even though I’ve spent the last seven or eight years actively broadening the spectrum of music I listen to, my introduction to music was through rock and it’s still the style I feel most at home with. For example, listening to metal or hip hop, I might really enjoy something but feel I lack the expertise to commandingly state something is truly great (or quite the opposite). But when it comes to rock music, I’m pretty confident to comment on something’s quality and to recommend enthusiastically knowing deep in my heart of hearts that I’m sharing something really worth sharing. Pom Poko is one such case, a rare gem I haven’t been able to keep to myself; the world around me would be so much poorer if I did.
The Norwegian quartet came to my attention last year through the first single off their third album, Champion. “Champion” is a mid-tempo, guitar-driven song that functions wonderfully on both a surface level and when one pays closer attention to the details: a casual listener will fall for the catchy guitar parts and sweet vocals, while even just a tad more attention will open your ears to some tasty syncopation and wonderful yet subtle play going on with each instrument. If the rest of the album was anything like this first taste, I was really in for a treat. The thing is, when release day finally arrived, I was met with a record where only about half the songs seemed to flow with the same smoothness as “Champion”; the rest of the time felt more like a choppy ride down river rapids. And I absolutely adored it, both the calm and the storm.
Pom Poko —named after a Studio Ghibli movie about a family of racoon dogs (tanukis) with prominent scrotums— was formed in Oslo in 2017 and has consisted since its inception of vocalist Ragnhild Fangel, guitarist Martin Tonne, bassist Jonas Krøve, and drummer Ola Djupvik, all of whom are jazz-trained musicians. In that sense, the band reminds me of New Zealand’s The Beths, another poppy-rocky-punky band whose members come from a jazz background. The bands are quite different, but I feel their familiarity with jazz shines through in unique, energetic and technically satisfying rock music. The Norwegians are famous for their astounding live shows, which was where the initial buzz for the band came from, eventually landing them a record deal with English label Bella Union, with whom they’ve released their three records.
Unlike Champion, where the band have given themselves ample space to explore the calmer side of their music, their first two records —Birthday (2019) and Cheater (2021)— are just chock full of noisy uptempo songs with supercharged guitars and mathy grooves, and it seems like for every calm moment, there’s an extra frantic one sort of to compensate. But even at their most chaotic, there is always a sense of measure, of an overarching vision or musical floorplan that keeps the music from total entropy but also never leads it into stale or sterile territory. What really does shine through no matter what aspect of the band any individual song is showcasing, is each member’s individual talent and the absolute tightness of their unit. The band is a true collective in its operations, sharing not only composition and arrangement duties in equal measure, but also matters of management, promotion, scheduling. Pom Poko is a band of friends who above all else love making music together, and that’s joyfully evident in the music they make together.
What’s most exciting for me is that they seem like a band with basically endless potential. They’ve stated that their mission is to keep playing together, and that they’ll grant each other all the time in the world between recording and touring to keep their personal and professional lives outside the band satisfied as well. And given the evidence of their first three albums, each showcasing the growth of a band becoming more proficient, more unified, more adventurous, I feel like getting to know them now will lead to a lifelong supply of amazing music. Also, if we were in the nineties, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be writing a WFA-type article about Pom Poko, because it would be impossible not to know them.
Pom Poko is:
Ragnhild Fangel – vocals
Martin Tonne – guitars
Jonas Krøve – bass
Ola Djupvik – drums
You can follow Pom Poko on Facebook and check their material out on Bandcamp.
