Pom Pom Squad - Mirror Starts Moving Without Me

It’s a shame that internet discourse, in the way it seems to always do, pitted Pom Pom Squad’s Mia Berrin against Olivia Rodrigo back in 2021 because both made use of similar visual tropes. As, notwithstanding the notion of setting two women of colour against each other being an issue in itself, there is ultimately much on ‘Mirror Starts Moving Without Me’ that the masses won over by ‘GUTS’ would very much enjoy. Pom Pom Squad’s second full-length presents a protagonist uncomfortable in their own skin, using at first a synthetic pop palette and later (and far more successfully), a more familiar grungy guitar sound. ‘Messaged’ and ‘The Tower’ both bristle with unease as they offer big guitars, while the stunning ‘Montauk’ and album centrepiece ‘Everybody’s Moving On’ are folky, if not almost country in their sound, following a Bright Eyes-Jenny Lewis-Best Coast lineage. The industrial ‘Villain’, on which breathing sounds manifest percussion, makes like a homage to Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’ (although, it should be noted, a recent tour alongside Poppy may also point to her track ‘Anything Like Me’). A little of the opening tracks’ emotional impact is lost in their sugary, pixel-perfect presentation - particularly the otherwise punchy ‘Street Fighter’ – but that aside, ‘Mirror Starts Moving Without Me’ is a rewarding listen.