Though my time in college was spent listening to and forming opinions about every alternative indie band that walked under the sun, in recent years I’ve veered away from new entries in the genre. My time writing for the good ol’ Pudd has seen me fill these virtual pages primarily with reflections and impressions of hip-hop, electronic, and R&B. This hasn’t really been by design. I still adore a vast array of sounds indie rock has to offer. I’ve just been branching out, trying to flex my verbal muscle in other directions. But when I do carve out time to check out some glorious indie rock & roll? Damn, does it hit.
I hadn’t heard of Momma – fronted by the main songwriting duo of Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten – prior to the release of their album Household Name, which came out back in July. But after seeing a few friends hype the album up on their IG stories, I figured I’d add it to the queue. Plus, I can’t resist an album with a slightly faded, blurry photo of a car as the cover (a clear indicator that the band in question is in their bag).
Connecticut band waveform* opened the night, giving a pretty lowkey intro as the medium-sized crowd trickled into Brighton Music Hall. After a couple sound system related hiccups, they got into the bulk of their set. Most of their tracks follow a slower tempo, with a bit of a moody stoner vibe to boot. It wasn’t 100% my cup of tea, but they seem like sweet lads.
Momma got their set started with “Rip Off,” the opening track off Household Name. While the song starts off on the gentler side, the growing dynamic range is a good example of what the band does very well: extremely catchy tracks with explosive choruses. They followed this intro up with “Medicine” and “Speeding 72,” which round off the opening of the album. Most of this tour’s setlist pulls from the album, with one or two older tracks thrown in here and there. This is probably a good indicator of the warm reception Household Name has been getting since its release.
If you put a gun to my head (please don’t) and made me compare Momma to one of the many 90s bands that no doubt influences their sound (also don’t), I’d jump right to the Breeders. But since comparison is the thief of joy, I really try to avoid making band-to-band comparisons. I’ve got mixed feelings about them, at least in terms of music writing: on one hand, it can be a useful compass to place a band within a sonic milieu of predecessors and contemporaries; on the other, it more often than not feels like lazy writing to me. So prior to the show, I knew I wanted to try to avoid tossing the Breeders analogue in this review in an effort to gauge Momma for they are as opposed to a standard they might not even be trying to live up to.
This plan went out the fucking window when Momma decided to bust out their cover of the Breeders’ “Divine Hammer” towards the end of their set. Since Momma have specifically cited Kim Deal’s songwriting as a big influence, I can’t really act surprised. Plus, it was friggin’ awesome.
If I had to lodge any complaint against an otherwise awesome set, it would probably be the show’s brevity. Right now, Momma’s shows are clocking out after about 10 songs, which is a perfectly reasonable length, and, of course, they are just humans who have to rest like everyone else. But given the crowd’s enthusiasm, I don’t think anyone in attendance would have hated it if the band added two or three more tracks to the list. The ones you do get, though, prove that Momma are vanguards of a strain of catchy alt rock that will undoubtedly please rockers romanticizing the 90s while still appealing to young newcomers to the annals of guitar-centric rock.
