Life In Plastic: The Sweet And Sinister World Of Pom Pom Squad
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 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. 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. 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.
Across the album, Berrin's voice squeezes, stretches and soars, embodying fictional characters and dark, divine versions of her own identity. On her ode to ' homecoming queen character, "," she rages, yelling. On a cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover" — originally released as demo, whose understanding of the assignment shines through its sonic textures. From the boundlessness of the vocals on "Red With Love" to the crushing strings that drop like bombs on "," Tudzin completes the record's cinematic universe, balancing clarity with chaos.
