The Pomps

Spoiler Alert: It’s a Ska band.

While his peers joined the white-belted masses at the coke-fueled dance-rock marathons that came to symbolize the water-treading music industry of the early 2000's, Alex Stern doubled down on the curious rhythms of Jamaican independence, the farfisa-drowned overtones of the British new-wave, and the arpeggiated jangle of Manchester's guitar-pop revival. This is the recipe for the Pomps; a band that is just laughably out-of-step enough with the current landscape to be taken seriously.

In his years-long journey to Pomp-hood, Alex started, joined and left bands such as The Void Union, The Sterns, Westbound Train, Mass. Hysteria and the New Collisions. All have been national touring workhorses, and some have gone onto legitimate international success while keeping him in the fold. It was through this constant touring that he met Casey Gruttadauria (The Macrotones, Satori), Rick Smith (Far from Finished, Brunt of It), and Jameson Hollis (Have Nots). It is a quartet that takes Ska out of its (mass-media-imposed) Pacific Sunwear laden beach party, and brings it into the basements, garages and warehouses of college-town America.

Save for the occasional guest player, the band eschews a horn section for a hook-oriented approach, embellished by interplay between guitar and organ. The band’s appealing first single “Icepack!” is a synth-string-drenched rave up, that in spite of its depressing lyrics, is more Motown than it is melancholy. Twin A-side “Right My Ship” juxtaposes “Spirit of ‘69” reggae with a British-invasion backbeat and a three vocal stack oozing with that certain genre of bitterness that afflicts only late twenty-somethings.

Though the group only officially formed in April of 2011, they are fielding offers for shows in the USA and Europe, and will be celebrating the release of a full-length in 2012. The Pomps are coming!