Pom Pom Squad Embrace Darkness and Vulnerability on Mirror Starts Moving Without Me

It hasn’t exactly been plain sailing for Pom Pom Squad’s Mia Berrin since the release of their cult-favorite debut album Death of a Cheerleader in 2021. The time since has seen Berrin dealing with people’s outside perspective of her. Even at a smaller scale than pop stars, indie artists are ultimately still exposed to higher attention levels than what they may have been used to before. Berrin found outside noise began to overwhelm her, and Pom Pom Squad’s second record Mirror Starts Moving Without Me explores the resultant fluctuating relationship she’s had with her sense of self.

Opening track “Downhill” marks the start of a descent into a much darker sound found across Pom Pom Squad’s second album. “Never thought I’d feel so numb at 25,” Berrin declares on a song that feels as though she’s on the cusp of being swallowed whole, skirting the line between revival and disaster. This pivot to a darker aesthetic initially comes as a surprise, given the winking punk and lovelorn lyrics from Death of a Cheerleader, but it allows Berrin to embody her most interesting caricatures to date.

Pop culture references have always played a key part in the aesthetic of Pom Pom Squad. Watching movies and listening to music with her siblings was the “language of my household,” as Berrin mentioned in her recent Paste Digital Cover Story. On Death of a Cheerleader, she flipped the heteronormative perspective of teenage rom coms to a queer perspective, much like in recent media such as 2023’s Bottoms. Film has a profound influence on Mirror Starts Moving Without Me as well, with Jennifer’s Body, Black Swan and Alice In Wonderland all credited as inspirations. 

This time around, Berrin becomes writer, director and the main character as she utilizes exaggerated personalities and heightened drama to touch upon deeply relatable emotions and struggles that many of us encounter. “Spinning” speaks of the volatile ways in which our 20s can take us by surprise; it’s a period that often requires more growth than we might realize. On “Street Fighter,” Berrin embodies villainous mockery and a picture of street-wise toughness. At its core, the song accentuates the ways in which we can sometimes aspire to be this singular force of nature, ready to take on anything and anyone, without considering how much of a lonely place that could really be. This push and pull between where we want to be and where we actually are makes for a fascinating dynamic across Mirror Starts Moving Without Me.

Berrin cites Prince and FKA Twigs as influences, but the sharp intakes of breath on “Villain” evokes the claustrophobia of Billie Eilish’s “bury a friend” before rocketing into a fiery torrent that could easily belong on Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour. The villain character is portrayed as necessary for Berrin’s survival across an album in which it feels like the universe has a personal vendetta against her. 

With the main themes across Mirror Starts Moving Without Me touching on self-perception, vulnerability, bad karma and more, Berrin doesn’t reach many conclusions. The narratives are more centered around the continuous and sometimes arduous journey we embark on to find out who we really are. There are a couple of tracks such as “Messages” and “Montauk” which feel less impactful compared to the rest of the album. The former especially retreads old ground about feeling cursed, which is covered in more engaging detail across the rest of the album. 

One of the major wins for Berrin on this record is the bold move to that darker aesthetic, which perfectly blends with her ability to explore the more volatile pretensions and aspirations we have when we feel like our backs are up against a wall. It also allows Pom Pom Squad’s grunge and 90s indie rock stylings to have a much greater tonal consistency too. Mirror Starts Moving Without Me is deceptively vulnerable, no matter how Berrin may want to cast herself as a “Villain” or “Street Fighter.”

Read our Digital Cover Story on Pom Pom Squad here.