After nearly a decade’s hiatus, Pomegranate Tiger resurface to bring their brand of heady instrumental prog to the cerebellums of the masses. Hailing from Ontario in the Great White North, Martin Andres’ passion project made a splash in 2013 with debut album Entities, and after 2015 follow-up Boundaries he chose to join forces as a touring musician with province-mates Oni. Emerging from an extended hibernation, All Input Is Error sees Andres returning to Pomegranate Tiger as a certified one-man band tackling humanity’s inevitable slide towards The Singularity. Promising a “melodic odyssey and rhythmic stampede,” what proggy secrets lurk behind this steampunk snake-god’s ominous visage?
Let’s get this out of the way, Martin Andres’ performance on All Input Is Error is remarkable. The guitars rely on a combination of snaking, arpeggiated patterns reminiscent of Animals As Leaders and plenty of djent-drenched chugs not unlike fellow Canucks, Intervals. Not content with proving his proficiency on a single instrument, Andres also handles drum duties. His nonstop amalgam of frenetic, jazzy cymbal work and complicated hemiola-laced double kick patterns is straight out of an alternate universe where Steve Gadd grew up listening to Periphery. Throw in sinister atmospheric synths to remind us of our impending AI overlords and the end result is an avalanche of sound, often an overwhelming one. All Input Is Error leaves no doubt about Andres’ technical prowess, but an album requires more than a commendable performance to be successful.
Smart songwriting is vital for creating an instrumental album that can hook in the casual listener, and Pomegranate Tiger struggles in this regard, mainly on two fronts. First, the music is punishingly active for much of the record’s 45-minute runtime. While atmospheric intros and outros provide some relief, once any given track between “Dagger Dance” and “False Dawn” begins in earnest, the listener is strapped into a high-speed pursuit between the drums and guitars, and nobody’s letting off the gas. Djent is the order of the day here, with its characteristic over-the-barline patterns obscuring downbeats and further disorienting all but the most rhythmically savvy listeners (“Poison Pen,” “The Cryptographer”). Many of the tracks segue directly into each other, blurring the distinction between songs and making the album feel a good deal longer than it is. Even after multiple listens I found myself struggling to recall which track belonged to which title, leading to my second issue: an almost total absence of melody. Save for two guitar leads—I’ll loosely refer to them as solos—in “The Great Filter” and “Burn The Spirit” any semblance of a melodic line is buried in the musical din and is certainly not memorable enough to recall. The absence of this critical musical building block leaves All Input Is Error feeling like a collection of backing tracks rather than a fully fleshed album.
When Pomegranate Tiger strays from their djent-riddled theatrics a scattering of diamonds in the rough can be discovered. Opener “Devils to Ourselves” features drums focused more on groove than flare and technical execution. Cinematic soundscapes come across convincingly in the warm, rich master (“The Great Filter,” Burn The Spirit”) and Andres occasionally diverts into electronica-tinged transitions landing somewhere between house and trap music (“Dagger Dance,” “The Great Filter”). The final two tracks showcase Andres’ classical guitar work alongside strings, a completely new sound-world bafflingly relegated to the end of the album. The jazz-infused drum solo fading the album out on “Keyways” comes off a touch self-indulgent, but after 40 minutes in the djentist’s chair I find my ears thankful for any sort of respite. For the amount of time Pomegranate Tiger explores the frantic and the dense, these moments to catch one’s breath are sadly few and far between.
All Input Is Error makes for a frustrating listen. Andres is clearly a talented multi-instrumentalist and his technical performance on this album deserves praise. But the lack of substantial melodic material is a glaring omission in already challenging music, and three-quarters of an hour of it is tough to digest. Die-hard fans of djenty instrumental metal—wherever you may roam—will find some satisfaction to be had here, but this is one platter of portents and polyrhythms I can’t recommend.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: pomegranatetiger.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/pomegranatetiger
Releases Worldwide: September 7th, 2023
