CD of The Week

Pom Pom Squad - Mirror Starts Moving Without Me (City Slang)

We met Mia Berrin, the mastermind behind Pom Pom Squad a few years back with her crunchy mix of indie rock sounds and subversive faux-cheerleader aesthetic. Squad leader Berrin is backed by Mari Alé Figeman, Shelby Keller, and Alex Mercuri. On her new sophomore full-length record, Mirror Starts Moving Without Me, she was partly inspired by Alice’s adventures through the looking glass to explore her emotional turmoil and reaction to her early 20s as well as the past few years of her career.

Album opener and lead single “Downhill” is an excellent, whirring indie rocker about trying to come back up from a fall, as Mia sings about how she “Never thought I'd feel so numb at 25” but declares in the chorus that she “Feels like I'm starting again/I never said I was done/I'm coming back from the dead.” She’s emotionally lost in the alt-pop track “Spinning,” co-written and co-produced with former Summer Cannibals main member Jessica Boudreaux.

“Street Fighter” is a zippy rocker inspired by the classic fighting video game, where Mia leans into her cheerleading-inspired stage name with a chant of “M-E-S-S-Y” and is spoiling for a battle with a foe, as she declares "You make petty remarks/I make pretty girl rock.” She’s ready for a fight again on the wild, lurching “Villain,” with its shades of early Billie Eilish. Elsewhere, she leans into the sound of 90s college rock jangling guitars on “Messages.”

Things slow down for the ballad “Everybody's Moving On,” as she takes stock of everyone around her growing up and changing. The dramatic, defiant “Doll Song” includes a nod to “My Favorite Things” in its melody and Mia continues to wrestle with her big emotions on the haunted, anxious “Running From Myself.”

After an interlude of tarot card reading, Mirror Starts Moving… wraps with the epic track “The Tower,” as Mia looks back on a time of feeling lost and invokes Alice, singing “My wonderland turned into hell” while power chords come crashing down around her.

Mirror Starts Moving Without Me has one foot in modern pop dynamics but applied to crunchy indie rock and personal turmoil. Olivia Rodrigo would approve and at Y-Not Radio, so do we.

Pom Pom Squad kick off their 2025 tour at the Ukie Club here in Philadelphia, with Caroline Kingsbury opening up, on February 26th.
Review by Joey O.