Pomeroy - "Cocoon Club"
GetGo! Records

Pomeroy has returned with a tremendously solid follow-up to their debut, Inside the Shine. The band is tighter, the production is better, and the grooves make you want to shake your booty harder. It’s the new party album of the local music scene.

Cocoon Club features both new and old songs from Pomeroy. Frankly, I’ve never been that big of a fan of bands re-recording songs to put on their first label release. Cocoon Club has four songs from Inside the Shine. However, since the songs sound better or just as good as they did on their debut, I can’t find any fault with wanting to get them out to a wider audience. I just feel it hoses the fans who already own Inside the Shine.

The new songs fall right into the groove Pomeroy has established for themselves. “Indecency” would be my choice for the radio single, since it’s so danceable and has a bass line that just grooves. I’m chair-dancing as I sit here writing this, even. It’s that damn good.

If there’s any serious issue I have with this album, it’s that Cocoon Club doesn’t stray far enough from the pattern Pomeroy has established for themselves. As a result, the cover of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” at the end is cool, but it just doesn’t jibe with the rest of the album and leaves listeners feeling disjointed. The band’s cover of A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario” would have fit better and closed the album on such a high note, but, well... it’s just not here.

The band has put out another quality release, but they would do well to embrace more of the hip-hop elements of their sound and wrap them up with the well-polished funk. It would make them into a groove band that would be unrivaled in the genre. Pomeroy hits that sound once on Cocoon Club, with “Turn Your Head.” It’s just about the best damn song on the record – with a combination of salsa, reggae, hip-hop, and funk. It’s everything the band should be on every song. If they use that song as a blueprint, they can rise above their local status and become a contender on the national scale.