by Caroline Nieto (@caroline.nieto)
Momma is back and they’re putting up a fight. In fact, they say as much in “Ohio All the Time,” the first single from their new album, Welcome to My Blue Sky. Of course, the lyric that follows is “I’m fucking up my life,” and put together, these phrases capture the push and pull of Momma’s attitude. The band, founded by high school friends Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, is determinedly reminiscent of 90s rock, an influence even clearer than on their previous album, 2022’s Household Name. Songs like “Speeding 72” and “Medicine” are decidedly inspired by slacker rock. “Speeding 72” even drops the line “You can catch us around/Listening to Gold Soundz,” an homage to the Pavement song. Considering their influences, Momma often boasts a playful bitterness. There’s no better example than Household Name’s “Tall Home,” scathing with a refrain of, “Never disrespect me/I’m the fucker down the street.”
On Welcome to My Blue Sky, Momma turns this feeling inwards, resorting to self-criticism in the wake of the band’s “parallel chaos” while on tour in 2022. Momma has always written about relationships, but on this record they face their romantic pitfalls with greater introspection. In particular, “Rodeo,” the record’s fourth and final single, narrates the resolve of Friedman and Weingarten’s respective partners during this tour. Weingarten says, “This song is written from the perspective of two people we kind of left behind romantically.” They evoke this image of a rodeo as a representation of longing without reciprocation that feels “like someone is doing laps around you and you just can’t keep up.”
Sonically, the band stays true to their foundations, loaded with distorted guitars and a heavy drum set. But Welcome to My Blue Sky also explores a lightness of sound that’s rare in their discography. The album’s title gets its name from a road sign the band saw while stopped at a gas station on tour, an insightful sentiment despite advertising an oil company. Momma loves to toe this line between grungy and poetic—their lyrics are typically sure in their simplicity, but songs like the album’s title track work with visceral description. “Welcome to My Blue Sky” runs with the road sign motif, evoking images of “white crosses made from rotting wood” and “a pickup truck with a bull on the hood.” They dig into a melancholia only ever found on long road trips, singing, “This world is so cruel/I’m getting kind of sick of seeing it through.”
Besides a clear thematic vulnerability, some songs even pull back from Momma’s typical heavy production. “Take Me With You” touts the band’s softer side, minimal in words but expansive in sound. What starts as a simple guitar/vocal pairing grows into a soundscape burning with longing. “How to Breathe” also takes a slower pace, adding languid strings to a chorus of “she taught my body how to breathe.” Weingarten attributes this new sound to being “less concerned with sounding cool and heavy and rock & roll and much more focused on good, clean songwriting,”
Despite a greater set of ballads in Welcome to My Blue Sky, Momma keeps some brighter songs on the table. The album’s third single, “Bottle Blonde” is a love letter from Friedman and Weingarten to their past selves and their messy lives spent on tour, hair rife with bleach. The song is an earworm, fresh with its sticky melodies and vocals that sound straight from a corded phone. There’s certainly a ‘90s/aughts energy to the song, bolstered by a shoutout by Veruca Salt’s Louise Post on Instagram. It’s a shinier kind of pop sound than the band typically goes for, but it works in a juxtaposition of the sound and nostalgic lyrics. “Stay All Summer” also boasts a catchy melody, chronicling naive love, late night talks, and “making a mess.” No two songs on the album feel the same, a clear signal of Momma’s matured sound and image. “Last Kiss” is a song for a rainy day, “Sincerely” for a sunny drive, and “I Want You (Fever)” for blue skies and beyond.