Album review: Momma – Welcome To My Blue Sky

In 2022, Brooklyn-based band Momma made waves with their third full-length, Household Name. Released on influential Illinois label Polyvinyl after the label cold-emailed the band, it didn’t make Momma quite that famous, but it nevertheless helped their profile rise significantly, and the record ended up on a number of end of year Best Album lists.

Much of the talk around it was about how well it channelled the grunge sounds of the ’90s, and for good reason. Formed in LA in 2015 by Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten – and now expanded to a four-piece that includes Aron Kobayashi Ritch (who also produced that record and this one) and Preston Fulks – the band now have the thankless task of trying to live up to its hype.

That's something it feels they’re both simultaneously trying to do and avoid with Welcome To My Blue Sky. Apparently inspired by a summer of great upheaval and turbulence, this definitely feels like a summer album, albeit a summer that didn’t quite live up to expectation, that was full of heartbreak and loss rather than love and excitement. Opener Sincerely is a poignant, cautious introduction that mirrors that sort of emotional fragility in terms of both music and lyrics. Though its warm chug is soothing, it’s also song that gets lost in itself through its lack of momentum.

Elsewhere, the gorgeous, plaintive title-track, the bittersweet indie-grunge of Stay All Summer, and the shoegazey, angst-ridden lament of Last Kiss all show what Momma can do. All three evoke those perfect, carefree, Dawson’s Creek-esque summer days, but also acknowledge they don’t really exist.

That contradiction is amplified on the vulnerable acoustic ache and longing of penultimate track Take Me With You, and the beautiful dysfunction of closer My Old Street. Both are album highlights – especially the wistful longing of the latter, which blossoms and blooms towards the end in flurry of melancholy noise, before fading out somewhat unceremoniously. Welcome To My Blue Sky is solid collection of songs that’s shot through with some truly majestic moments, but one that doesn’t quite reach its potential.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Scowl, Winona Fighter, Smashing Pumpkins

Welcome To My Blue Sky is released on April 4 via Lucky Number