Led by singer/songwriter/guitarists Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, who started the band while in high school, Momma's riffy, ruminative indie rock steadily climbed within indie ranks across the releases of their first two albums, as word spread and some favorable concert slots came their way (they opened a show for Gang of Four in L.A. in 2019). Arriving after the well-received Two of Me (2020) -- a concept album about small-town life in an alternate reality -- they make their Polyvinyl label debut with Household Name, a record distinctly rooted in real, everyday life. It reunites the songwriters with engineer/producer and sometimes bandmember Aron Kobayashi-Ritch, who worked on their first two records, although Household Name marks their first time in a professional studio. Featuring vocal lines that are more conversational than especially melodic, and interior-dwelling moods that never quite break out into anthemic territory, lyrics and sturdy riffs do a lot of the heavy lifting on songs that are visceral, dissonant, and restrained at once. Perhaps acknowledging this, first track "Rip Off" begins with stick clicks and a crescendoing, amp-like hum, only to climax with a soft-spoken, meandering guitar line and vibraslap. When the singer enters, it's at a notch above a whisper. The song gets gradually louder and grungier as she makes propositions and promises of fame that are repeatedly ignored, culminating in a more full-throated version of the chorus ("I'm waiting for your call/I've got what you want/Now you're singing along to my song"). They revisit musician perspectives later, most conspicuously on "Rockstar," which embellishes breathy vocals with showy guitar solos, feedback, and a rumbling low end. While Momma subtly vary tempos and noise density from track to track, and occasionally switch up singers, Household Name's 12 songs rely on a core group of chords and timbres, ultimately seeming like different chapters of the same drifting, all-night dream in which they air grievances with no one on the receiving end. Whether it's highly relatable or a bit paint-by-numbers is up to the listener, although the blueprint here is an auspiciously well-tested one.
© Marcy Donelson /TiVo