Tampa emo band Pohgoh continues bounceback with 'du und ich,' and shows no signs of slowing down

Last weekend, only one member of Pohgoh stayed in Gainesville after the band’s set for the city’s annual Halloween punk-rock bacchanal, Fest, which brings together dozens and dozens of acts from across the world. “I’m probably a bit more beat up than the rest of the band,” guitarist Matt Slate told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. But he wasn’t alone in feeling a little worn.

Drummer Keith Ulrey wore a brace on his right arm due to some recent tendonitis. Keith’s wife, Pohgoh frontwoman and primary songwriter Susie Ulrey added, “I’m tired all the time, so nothing ever really changes for me. But it was really fun to play the new songs.”

Bassist Brian Roberts agreed that it was exciting to see the new stuff be so well received and was hopeful for next year when people actually know the words. Fans will have a lot of time to get acquainted, too.
On Friday via Spartan Records, Pohgoh releases du und ich, the Tampa band’s third album, and its second since reuniting in 2016. The 12-song outing wears a lot of the same indie-rock sounds as its predecessor, 2018’s Secret Club, plus every shred of the earnest, page-from-a-journal honesty of Pohgoh’s 1997 debut, In Memory of Bab. That album, together with a single “Friend X” from the same year, cemented the band’s place as one of the most revered bands to come out of the emo’s second wave.

The new album still has hints of the influence bands like Superchunk, Madder Rose and even Juliana Hatfield and Husker Du had on the group, but more than anything that Pohgoh’s released, du und ich, feels like the outfit’s most realized, mature and aesthetically broad set of songs.

There is pedal steel on the record (“Planet Houston”), plus cello from band friend Gordon Withers (“Words Are Harder”). Producer J. Robbins even added Hammond organ on a few songs. Anna Conner of Baltimore indie-pop band Thrushes also makes an appearance on one of the album’s singles (“Weeds”) along with War On Women’s Shawna Potter and Brooks Harlan.
“This was the album where we said ‘yes’ to everything,” Keith said, “well, at least to trying everything.”

The trust and willingness to go out of the band’s comfort zone paid off.
du und ich goes hard with loud and dirty guitars where it needs to, and takes deep, moody breaths where recovery is in order (often within the same song, like on “Hammer”). In some places, the album is a meditation. Elsewhere, it’s the kind of record you want to sing along to at the top of your lungs while sweating in a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd—which is totally juxtaposed to where the album started coming to life.
“Du und ich” is German for “you and I,” the band said in the run up to the album, “an us-against-the-world sentiment those lucky enough to spend the last two-and-a-half years locked down with a loved one.”

While a good handful of du und ich was written before Covid lockdowns, there was a lot of back-and-forth between Susie and Slate, who would trade GarageBand files, before kicking them to Keith and Roberts who added their parts. For seven months in 2020, the band—all friends since the ‘90s—didn’t physically see each other. That isolation was in stark contrast to Pohgoh’s post-Secret Club life, which not only saw the band travel the east coast in support of the album, but also go on tour with Jawbreaker. There were even Japan dates where Pohgoh learned that fans still captivated by the lore of its 1997 debut were ready to help sell out several venues.
But the pandemic had another lesson to teach.

“All the stops and starts forced us to figure out new ways to write when we physically couldn’t be in the same room together,” Susie added. That didn’t stop Pohgoh from its normal songwriting process though, and per usual, what Susie initially turned in often took a lot of turns.

“I’m surprised Susie hasn’t stabbed one of us,” Roberts said.

“Brian’s right, usually what I bring in as a finished song gets turned on its head by the band,” Susie conceded. “It’s aggravating and completely exhilarating at the same time.”
And when Pohgoh finally got back together in real life, Keith said practices were cathartic in every way. “Not only to play music together, but to be creative during such a static, unsure moment in our lives,” he added.

And while the band is getting older, it still has a lot of gas left in the tank and no plans to slow down. In fact, Pohgoh arrived at Robbins’ Magpie studio to track du und ich armed with more songs than ever before. Slate can’t think of a reason why the spigot would turn off either.

“It’s hard to say. Hopefully nothing, for a good while longer at least. We’ve been doing this for so long that it always feels natural and right. I guess when that stops being the case, maybe…,” he said.

Roberts and Keith still jump into the songwriting process when they’re called upon, and Susie—who’s continued her practice of writing candidly about living with multiple sclerosis—really only sees one scenario where she might hang it up.

“Death,” she told CL. “I won’t ever stop writing.”