Photo Credits: Eliza Jouin
In 2021, Pom Pom Squad released their first full-length album, which was brimming with references about being young, queer and countering preconceived notions. The album sent a shock down my spine. First I heard one song from it, then I became obsessed with the entire album, and finally I saw them in Portland when they came. I got a signed setlist, which is a prized possession. On October 25th, 2024, Pom Pom Squad’s sophomore album, Mirror Starts Moving Without Me, was released. The album is filled with the same clever references and witty songwriting that Mia Berrin, the lead singer, has become known for.
With this album, gone is the campy high school imagery from Death of a Cheerleader, replaced with a different stage of growth and images reminiscent of a house of mirrors. The visual-steeped music that was a hallmark of the debut album is revisited in the second. Her focus has shifted and this time hinges on Alice in Wonderland, taking us through the looking glass.
The first track “Downhill” sends us down the rabbit hole into Berrin’s proverbial Wonderland. At a fast pace, the listener is launched into the album - highlighted by the refrain, “Its all downhill from here.” We have left high school behind, but the work is still concerned with coming of age. As Berrin sings, “Never thought I’d feel so numb at twenty-five,” she begins to dissect what it feels to be in your twenties and facing the rest of your life.
“Spinning” was the single that drew me into the album in the first place. It starts with the mirror image that Berrin has been considering in this work, “I watch her face, I know it well/She looks like me at seventeen/ And I can't shake the parallel/ But I feel like a parody.” As this line ends, the chorus begins, accompanied by a crashing guitar sound that picks up the song’s pace.
The next song, “Street Fighter” opens with a voice clip from Berrin’s mom, “If they ain’t paying your bills, pay them bitches no mind.” This one gets into Berrin’s sense of humor and she references the classic arcade game. She also calls back to her cheerleader persona that was highly present in the last album, saying “You couldn’t hear me?/ What if I cheerlead?/ M-E-S-S-Y/ You’re messy.” It continues the faster pace of the beginning of the album. In the second verse, Berrin claims “I make pretty girl rock.” which is a fantastic description of the band’s sound, combining pop influences with synth, shoegaze, and grunge.
“Everybody’s Moving On” is the first of the slower tempo songs thus far. Though there are often such transitions in the previous album, they are always navigated well and do not draw away from the cohesion of the whole album. This song feels very salient to one’s twenties - a period where everyone is growing and changing, moving to new places, leaving a fractured sense of self. This harkens back to the emotion that Berrin portrays in the first album with tracks like “Crying” and “Forever.” There is an endless amount of emotion poured into all of Berrin’s work.
In “Villain” the verses are quiet, Berrin’s voice overlays the sound of breathing, cut in with some unsettling horror movie music, then as she launches into the chorus, the music hits us full force. This one is the most grunge thus far, vividly portraying a villainous character. The characters that Berrin can create are a highlight of her work. She says, “ Heard 'em say I couldn't hack it/ Somebody hand me the hatchet” continuing the themes of classic horror movies throughout. The post-chorus is haunting, “You’ll be just like me/ I’ll be like you” examining this sort of distorted reflection of oneself.
“Running from Myself” talks about possession and has an overlaying sound that sounds like the opening sequence of “Stranger Things.” This one examines the reflected self, a sort of possessed other. “Running from myself all my life/ Running from myself, I'm terrified/ Don't know how to cope/ Hoping that I won't catch up this time.” This terror of one’s own self permeates the song and the feeling persists through the rest of the album, running from the past self and the decisions they made.
The next three songs in the album are almost composed as a triptych. Before this point, Berrin has not steered the songs toward love, but she delves into the subject in the next few songs.
“Messages” dives into the feeling of life’s overwhelming qualities. In the salient chorus, she sings,“Luck doesn’t work/ Love is a curse/ What doesn’t kill you only makes you worse” Berrin takes that saying, “What only kills you makes you stronger” which is commonly trotted out when things go badly, and turns it on its head. This echoes the realities of trauma and bad experiences.
“Montauk” seems to dive further into the curse of love, one of the slower songs on the album. There is an approaching storm on the beach where they are vacationing. This sounds like a memory of a nice weekend before things turned sour between the singer and their loved one. The outro is deeply sad, “Hold me, tell me I’ll never be lonely/ I’ll love you best if/ you let me/ For rich or for poor/ and for sure you’re/ the best thing I’ve/ got.”
“Doll Song” sounds to me like the aftermath of this relationship. This echoes the feeling of a toxic relationship that has made the person into someone else, which Berrin communicates through the imagery of a puppet. This aligns with the self she doesn’t recognize, “I don’t know how you made a doll out of me.” There is an unsettling quality of this, reminiscent again of a horror movie. In the bridge, she finds solace in the end of the relationship, “At least when I’m lonely/ I know I’m the only one/ pulling my strings.” This feels like the end to a troubled and toxic relationship.
The “Tarot Interlude” flows right into the final song on the album, “The Tower” as Berrin includes a voice recording of her best friend explaining the meaning of the tarot card, the Tower. This card communicates a time of turmoil, crisis, and unforeseen change. As she begins the song about the card, she explains the symbolism in the final track. She describes her fall from the Tower, “Did you see the movie/ 'Bout the girl so obsessed over proving herself/ She loses herself/ That's how I felt/ Tearing into me/ Like a sword through the heart/ Took the card I was dealt/ It didn't end well/ That's when I fell.” The movie she references here is Black Swan which focuses on mirror imagery as well as the shattering of oneself to attain something else. This feels terribly important to the role that Berrin has assumed, being a professional singer. She also references other tarot cards with her mention of a “sword through the heart” where she describes the Three of Swords iconography of three swords stabbing a red heart. This symbolizes heartbreak, emotional pain, grief, and pain, which Berrin covers across the album. The last lines of the bridge say, “My wonderland turned into hell,” calling back the trip down the rabbit hole that began the album. In the outro she sings the name of the album to fruition, “It was just like the part in/ the movie where the/ mirror starts moving without me.” She wraps up her album with that essential imagery, the strangeness of becoming someone.
Overall, despite my initial trepidation that this album wouldn’t live up to the last one for me, there is an essential growth between the two albums. It seems as if the themes and considerations are maturing with me, that continuation of a Bildungsroman and self-discovery in the mire that is someone’s twenties.
Lyrics from Mirror Starts Moving Without Me