Flamingods return with their new studio album Head of Pomegranate which will be released on 13 October via The Liquid Label. The band travelled to Atlanta and spent a month in the studio with Grammy Award-winning producer Ben H. Allen (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, M.I.A) in the summer of 2022.
The much-loved London quartet have now been crafting their distinctive genre-defying music for over a decade now and are at the top of their game with fifth album Head of Pomegranate. The album title comes from the Arabic translation of Ras Rumman رأس الرمان; the name of the Bahraini village where Kamal Rasool’s dad grew up, a place where pomegranates were once cultivated. Kamal lost his dad to Covid during the writing process, which had a notable impact on the LP, influencing the direction and themes explored. The sunny location of the studio paralleled the heat they grew up with in Bahrain and the experience gave the band a new lease on life.
“By the end of our last album campaign [Levitation] we were very close to throwing in the towel’, says Kamal. ‘Making this album felt a bit like our redemption moment. It helped us through a lot – including my grieving process. Getting to work with Ben was a dream come true. We grew up listening to records he made – so seeing him and his team work, soaking it all in, was very inspiring. It felt like he was the missing piece we had been looking for.”
Stylistically and in typical nature of a Flamingods record, there are a lot of genres and sounds covered on Head of Pomgranate. Weaving through genres of psychedelia, new wave, electronica and punk – often within the same song – is a bit of a specialty for the band, as is their knack for blending in influences from their unique cultural heritages and love of 70s British rock and roll.