- Polyvinyl
- 2025
They say your frontal lobe doesn’t fully develop until you’re 25. In crossing that milestone you might find yourself subjected to a slew of preconceived notions and expectations: Are you well-established in your career yet? Is your current partner "the one"? You can no longer chalk up your moral missteps to naivete; you risk fucking up your life. And, if you’re Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, you might develop an affinity for the sleepy corners of the Midwest, belying your coastal roots. "I never got Ohio, babe, but now I do," the core duo of Momma proclaim on "Ohio All The Time," an early single to their fourth album Welcome To My Blue Sky. It’s a heartwarming admission on a record brimming with tiny moments of self-discovery.
Momma landed on the title for Welcome To My Blue Sky, out this Friday, after spotting the words on a gas station sign while on tour with Weezer in 2023. The Brooklyn band, which also includes bassist-producer Aron Kobayashi Ritch and drummer Preston Fulks, spent a long chunk of time on the road following the success of their 2022 breakthrough Household Name; on that album, Friedman and Weingarten sang of rock stardom aspirationally, driving their minivan to their next DIY gig while dreaming of a radio hit. Soon, those goals became attainable: Within the next year and a half, Momma played Coachella and supported indie heavyweights like Death Cab For Cutie, St. Vincent, Modest Mouse, and Alex G. According to one Stereogum commenter, a Momma member had to sell their tickets to see Pavement -- who are referenced on Household Name -- at Brooklyn Steel in September 2023. They couldn’t use them, because Momma had been asked to open the show.
"Ohio All The Time" is probably the best available summary of Welcome To My Blue Sky, the first album Momma made following the ostensible maturation of their frontal lobes. Over a breezy, mid-tempo instrumental with shades of Jagged Little Pill, Friedman and Weingarten sing about finding themselves and forging relationships amid their newfound freewheeling lifestyle: “I’m running to you, right?/ I’m gunning for you/ Never been bad, but I’ll try.” The question mark there implies some uncertainty, but when the duo profess, “I’m fucking up my life,” there’s also an air of pride and self-assuredness. How bad is fucking up, really, if you’re happy in the end?
In that same period of post-Household Name pandemonium, Friedman and Weingarten both ended their respective long-term relationships, and they’re the first to admit there may have been some infidelity involved. Welcome To My Blue Sky kicks off with themes of romantic upheaval on the dreamy, featherlight opener "Sincerely": "I've been lost on my own before/ Please don't beg me to stay/ 'Cause I'm outside the door," they sing in unison, their disillusionment contrasting the no-holds-barred lust that follows. As if moving in real time, next comes the album’s best song "I Want You (Fever)," a red-hot confession of desire broadcast directly from the crosshairs: "Really can’t believe you didn't tell her/ Do you think she knows we’re back together?/ Everyone can see what this is all about." There’s no use in dancing around the truth, Momma seem to say, when the chemistry is this undeniable. But they’re also ready to extend some sympathy to the hearts they broke: "I can’t keep up/ You’re the one they came to see," they sing on the hard-hitting “Rodeo,” a song Friedman and Weingarten wrote from the perspective of their former partners, adding a valuable point of view to their indulgence. “Are you thinking of me out there?”
Meanwhile, songs like the saccharine pop number “Stay All Summer” and the balladic, dramatic “How To Breathe” not only detail the process of unexpectedly falling into brand-new love -- “Can we cut to the part when we say how we feel?” -- but they showcase Momma’s softer side, a side previously overshadowed by the grungier tendencies of their past work. Welcome To My Blue Sky is more varied in pace and tone, though it finds consistency in Kobayashi Ritch’s deliberate production. One of Momma’s strong suits is just how dynamic their studio recordings sound, and this album is no different: “I Want You (Fever)” mirrors Clams Casino’s stuttering synths, while the syrupy “Bottle Blonde” layers subdued guitars over a shuffling, lo-fi drum machine beat. I hear a Sheryl Crow twang on the chilled-out title track, a welcome contrast against bangers like “Last Kiss” and “Rodeo,” where guitar tones skew towards Deftones territory. Each track, though, carries its own certain atmosphere, a beefy low-end bass and just the right amount of vocal distortion bolstering them. I can’t see Momma ever permanently surrendering their '90s slacker rock influence, but Welcome To My Blue Sky makes it fresh in a way few bands can successfully accomplish.
Romantic love under the rock star spotlight is maybe the most obvious theme of Welcome To My Blue Sky, but I also see it as a love story between Friedman and Weingarten themselves: A pair of likeminded creatives with a decade of friendship under their belts. You feel this the most with "Bottle Blonde," where the duo share an appreciation and forgiveness for their younger selves: "You're gonna figure it out."
"We finish each other’s sentences,” Weingarten recently told The Fader. “Etta will be writing a lyric and I’d be like, this is the word that you’re looking for. And it’s not just the word that would be working for the song, but the word that expresses how I’m feeling in the moment. We’re always on the same wavelength.” Fucking up sure is a lot less scary alongside someone who understands you to such an acute degree. Maybe your soulmate isn’t always the one waiting for you at home, Welcome To My Blue Sky suggests. Maybe your soulmate is just whoever feels the most like home to you.
Welcome To My Blue Sky is out 4/4 via Polyvinyl.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Panchiko's Ginkgo
• Florist's Jellywish
• Black Country, New Road's Forever Howlong
• The Ophelias' Spring Grove
• Sleigh Bells' Bunky Becky Birthday Boy
• Scowl's Are We All Angels
• Anika's Abyss
• Djo's The Crux
• Miki Berenyi Trio's Tripla
• DJ Koze's Music Can Hear Us
• Mess Esque's Jay Marie, Comfort Me
• Yann Tiersen's Rathlin From A Distance | The Liquid Hour
• Bleed From Within's Zenith
• Soul Coughing's LIVE 2024
• Coffin Prick's Loose Enchantment
• Penelope Trappes' A Requiem
• Tobias Grim's Evolution
• The Waterboys' Life, Death And Dennis Hopper
• Camp Trash & Dowsing's An Embarrassment Of Riches Split
• duendita's a strong desire to survive
• Bnny's One Million And Three Love Songs
• Boldy James & V Don's Alphabet Highway
• Hyldon's HYLDON JID023
• Dirty Projectors & s t a r g a z e’s Song Of The Earth
• Heaven's Dream Aloud
• Linying's Swim, Swim
• Josh Joplin Group's GpYr
• Babe Rainbow's Slipper imp and shakaerator
• Jon Bryant's Therapy Notes
• SYML's Nobody Lives Here
• Lawrence Hart's Come In Out Of The Rain
• Lily Seabird's Trash Mountain
• Sister Ray's Believer
• Marlon Williams’ Te Whare Tīwekaweka
• Eyed Jay's Strangeland
• Joan Arnau Pàmies' Guidelines/Fonaments
• Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs' Death Hilarious
• Oscar Jerome's The Fork
• Craig Finn's Always Been
• Hiromi's OUT THERE
• The Kilograms' Beliefs & Thieves
• Alisa Xayalith's Slow Crush
• Psymon Spine's Heady Remix Collector
• Glare's Sunset Funeral
• j.o.y.s.' j.o.y.s.
• Nico Georis' Music Belongs To The Universe
• Buffet Lunch's Perfect Hit!
• Barker's Stochastic Drift
• L.A. Witch's DOGGOD
• Walt McClements' On A Painted Ocean
• Cameron Knowler's CRK
• HXH's STARK PHENOMENA
• Pidgins' Refrains Of The Day, Vol. 2
• McStine & Minnemann's III
• Elton John & Brandi Carlile's Who Believes In Angels?
• Hüma Utku's Dracones
• Air Drawn Dagger's A Guide For Apparitions
• L.A. Guns' Leopard Skin
• young friend's motorcycle sound effects
• Sarah Mary Chadwick's Take Me To A Bar / What Am I, Gatsby?
• Toby Sebastian's Eyes Light Up
• Wet's Two Lives
• Sean Haefeli’s Flying Broken Form
• Allegaeon's The Ossuary Lens
• Bermuda Search Party's Fools On Parade
• Will Johnson's Diamond City
• Jordan Rakei's The Loop Deluxe
• Florida Man's Plastique
• Malcolm Todd's Malcolm Todd
• Ant's Collection Of Sounds: Volume 4
• Riki Lindhome's No Worries If Not
• Elita's HELL HILL
• Fatboi Sharif & Driveby's Let Me Out
• Daisy The Great's The Rubber Teeth Talk
• Various Artists' NYContinuity Vol.1: New New York Does Old New York
• ALO's Frames
• West 22nd's Nowhere To Be
• Rachel Chinouriri's Little House
• Babebee's all that heaven allows
• Hataałii's I’ll Be Around
• Daniel Kleederman's Another Life
• Corbin's Crisis Kid
• Grace VanderWaal's CHILDSTAR
• Citizenry's Citizenry
• Dauber's Falling Down
• Luna Kills' Deathmatch
• Juanita & Juan's (Alice Bag & Kid Congo Powers) Jungle Cruise
• Rockabye Baby!'s Lullaby Renditions Of BTS
• Michael Grigoni & Pan American's New World, Lonely Ride
• ODESZA & Theodore Shapiro's Music To Refine To: A Remix Companion To Severance
• Subtronics' Fibonacci Part 1: Oblivion EP
• Skrillex's F*uck U Skrillex You Think Ur Andy Warhol But Ur Not!! <3
• Y's Y EP
• Maz's NPC EP
• Sydney Rose's I Know What I Want EP
• Kier Byrnes & The Kettle Burners' Before The Fall EP
• foamboy's lime, knife, time, hand EP
• Commoner's Change Of Heart EP
• GIGI's Waves Of it EP
• Perennial's Perennial '65 EP
• CRIG's CRIG EP
• Volena's Volena EP
• Keeley Forsyth & Matthew Bourne's Hand To Mouth EP
• Sausha's Sausha EP
• The Null Club's The Null Club EP
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