![]() ![]() Over Zoom, Berrin and I spoke about the creative challenge of combining jagged rock with jangly retro pop, earning her position as co-producer alongside one of her recording heroes and how film, fashion and plastic furniture all informed the sounds of Death of a Cheerleader. But rarely does an artist land in a creative sweet spot like Berrin has, deftly matching sight and sound to illustrate the record's two sides - the saturated landscape where punk, glam and camp coexist, and the uncanny underbelly of Americana. In many ways, the record itself is just that - a work of drama, produced by the interplay of musical and visual motifs. She stares into the camera lens with eyes painted blue, straight-faced, as if waiting for the red velvet curtains to close. "And I'll treat every day the same / But every night I'll scream your name / Till then be good and wait for me," she sings, constructing such a perfect mirage of her own heartache that, as a listener, there's no need to trudge through the actual pain of it yourself - you can simply embed yourself into the fantasy.Ī vibrancy resonates throughout Death of a Cheerleader, the sounds of which are painted in the same hues as the album cover: a technicolor stage build of fake grass and flowers, with Berrin buried underground, adorned in white. ![]() However, there's no better sampling of Pom Pom Squad's fluidity and attuned aestheticism than the inspired three-track run of "Drunk Voicemail," "This Couldn't Happen" and "Be Good." Slithering through the ache of love and loathing, and into the reprise of a lover's distant plea, Berrin does all of the heavy lifting with her pen. On its full-length debut, Death of a Cheerleader, the band doubles down on its biting, razor-sharp punk while exploring the appeal of old pop novelties, enmeshing the two sounds in the process. Conjuring images of neck-biting and heart-shaped lockets, Pom Pom Squad queers the ideal of an American adolescent experience through love songs that scratch an itch for autonomy and self-sufficiency more than they express romance, or keep true love at a distance with the help of chilly orchestral arrangements. The 23-year-old Pom Pom Squad songwriter, vocalist and auteur lets her voice drawl on " Head Cheerleader," fusing with the instrumentation momentarily before bursting into the lovesick chorus. In the world of Pom Pom Squad, "the scariest girl on the cheerleading team" is also the most desirable: "You should ask your mother what she means / She says stay away from girls like me," Mia Berrin sings. ![]() The band's full-length debut, Death of a Cheerleader, is out now. ![]()
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