Momma’s Allegra Weingarten and Etta Friedman naked all and step into a brand new period of life on their fourth album ‘Welcome to My Blue Sky’ – a uncooked, actual, and completely unapologetic indie rock triumph.
Stream: ‘Welcome to My Blue Sky’ – Momma
I hope folks fall in love with these songs another way than ‘Family Identify.’ I need them to turn out to be anthems for folks.
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Momma have laid all their playing cards on the desk.
Launched April 4th, 2025 by means of Polyvinyl Information, their new album Welcome to My Blue Sky handles the whole lot from infidelity to ingesting to nostalgia for a childhood you may’t return to. Regardless of it being a document detailing every approach they screwed up throughout this summer season, neither of the indie darlings are ashamed of the content material, nor was it a query of whether or not to share: “It was the one factor on our thoughts,” mentioned Allegra Weingarten the night time I sat down with them, just some days earlier than the document’s launch.
Regardless of having years of expertise at writing witty, biting rock songs about being unapologetically themselves and never feeling like the most effective folks, the summer season of 2022 marked a lack of innocence. Amidst all of the hazards of tour, they emerged on the opposite facet of it totally completely different folks. It put them out, heading dwelling with their tails between their legs.
Etta Friedman, the band’s different founding member, sighed, settling into their seat. “I feel I had probably the most transitional interval of my life since I left for school. It’s like turning eighteen and realizing you’re an impartial individual now, after which being a very completely different human being each day till you flip 21. That summer season, we flipped the whole lot the other way up.”
“Yeah. I’ve written songs about having my coronary heart damaged and being the one which’s unhappy and pining. That’s been a steady theme in my very own writing. Ever since that summer season and scenario, I’ve had a far more complicated view of myself. I am in a position to harm folks, and that’s onerous to appreciate. I don’t assume I’m a foul individual although,” Weingarten added.
“That’s precisely what I imply. There have been so many instances Allegra and I checked out one another like, ‘Can we suck?’ and ‘I don’t know if that is the individual that I believed I used to be, that I’m able to doing issues that harm folks.’ I believed I used to be only a sufferer to it, and coming to phrases that I may very well be on the opposite finish was actually vital.”
There’s no elusivity to Welcome to My Blue Sky.
The truth is, Weingarten and Friedman are wanting ahead to you asking them. In spite of everything, it’s so inseparable from the document that they wouldn’t have the ability to keep away from it even when they needed to. “I’m simply excited to listen to what folks, particularly the folks straight concerned in songs and don’t comprehend it, need to say,” Friedman mentioned with a small, creeping smile. “I feel there’s rather a lot I hope folks take from it, like that f*ing up is okay, that making errors is completely okay. Generally you need to do it to be higher off later.”
Weingarten nodded. “I really feel like that is the primary time those that get pleasure from our music will actually get to know who we’re as folks, I feel. It’s a really private factor that we’re laying out on the desk, however the extra private you’re in your music, the extra persons are going to connect with it. I hope folks fall in love with these songs another way than Family Identify. I need them to turn out to be anthems for folks.”
And anthemic they’re. Welcome to My Blue Sky retains you hooked because it feeds you particulars of what actually occurred that summer season, ones that journey the road between being deeply private and broadly relatable. Opening with “Sincerely,” the document gives up a prologue, teasing the story they’re itching to inform you. Light voices float over acoustic guitar and smooth piano, asking if they will want away the whole lot that occurred this summer season. When the 2 sing, “No return deal with – I really like you to demise, however I’m outdoors the door,” the instrumental fades, giving solution to what’s to come back.
When the synths swell for “I Need You (Fever),” we start to get an actual image of what the members of Momma are strolling away from. The music paints an image of messy breakups, new hookups, and gossip galore. The repetition of “Decide up and go away her, I need you, fever” is spellbinding in the identical approach as an affair is, deliciously enjoyable regardless of the ethical dilemma on the middle of the music. Momma are hypnotizing the topic into selecting them, and it really works on the listener simply as properly.
A part of this infectious nature is a swap in music construction from their regular alt-rock model discovered on their earlier document, Family Identify, one which echoes the influences of their ’90s predecessors. That album leaned full-force into the fixed comparisons the band receives to teams like Veruca Salt, Breeders, Smashing Pumpkins, and many others. Whereas Momma carry out fantastically inside that subgenre, anybody that thinks they sound similar to a grunge band is just not listening to sufficient grunge. There’s all the time been a clear aspect to their music, one dripping in nostalgia and enjoyable, so it makes full sense that they shifted on this course.
“Keep All Summer time” is a unbelievable instance of this. Weingarten and Friedman bounce forwards and backwards on this observe with a flirtatious optimism. “I’d stall and keep all summer season, babe, if you need me to.” Absent is the heavy lead guitar and thumping drum beat in favor of regular chords, framing one thing as conflicting as troublesome as leaving your companion for another person as the one proper selection.
“I feel one lesson we realized making the final document is that much less is extra,” admitted Weingarten. “It’s not that I don’t love taking part in me some guitar and writing a lead half, however there have been so many situations the place it was time so as to add a lead and I attempted 1,000,000 various things. The factor that ended up sounding the most effective was just a bit doom doom doom riff. It’s simply what match, and you may’t power complicated guitar components or songwriting if it’s not what the music warrants.”
“Yeah,” Friedman agreed. “It’s tremendous like, ‘Does this really feel good proper now? Sure? Okay, let’s maintain going.”
“We didn’t really feel like we needed to show that we’re badass guitar gamers, as a result of who cares? We are badass guitar gamers.”
We didn’t really feel like we needed to show that we’re badass guitar gamers, as a result of who cares? We’re badass guitar gamers.
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Regardless of this shift, Welcome to My Blue Sky settles even deeper into the sound followers have fallen for on Family Identify.
“We bought to just accept that we are able to do no matter we wish. It doesn’t all need to sound the identical, and you actually see that right here. No two songs have the identical vibes. It was tremendous scary firstly, as a result of we have been fairly conscious of the truth that we’d disappoint the key Family Identify followers. However you need to be assured in your resolution making, and that for those who prefer it, others will prefer it. We determined to be actually egocentric when it got here to writing, as a result of we’re those who need to play these songs for years and years and years to come back,” Weingarten mentioned, voice dripping with finality.
This isn’t to say there’s not one thing nonetheless for followers of Family Identify, regardless of Momma’s aforementioned anxieties about this. Those that come for heavy guitar and angst for miles have absolutely the ripper that’s “Final Kiss.” “We had the chords for some time,” Weingarten mentioned, “however we may not determine the place we have been taking that music. All we knew is that we preferred it, and we actually needed to maintain it round, but it surely was tremendous difficult.”
That being mentioned, this document stands as their strongest by a mile attributable to this very selfishness. The band discovered themselves in a position to actually swap up their sound. In collaboration with their producer and bandmate Aron Kobayashi-Ritch, they may experiment with extra digital components, significantly on “Bottle Blonde,” a Frou-Frou-esque love letter to their previous selves.
“We wrote [‘Bottle Blonde’] in a resort room simply on acoustic, and we had it as a voice memo,” defined Friedman. “It was the final one for the document, and we needed to do one thing completely different as a result of it sounded so fairly simply acoustic, and, like, we already had so many songs that have been guitar-based! Once we went to go demo it with Aron, we had three tracks with some fairly random references, and Aron had this drum loop. We have been immediately like, ‘Oh, my God. You perceive the project. It’s precisely what we needed.’ I simply couldn’t have predicted it sounding that approach.”
What additionally advantages from the selfishness is the lyrics. “I’m extra happy with each music on this document lyrically than something on Family Identify, to be utterly sincere. I imply, not talking for Etta’s songs,” Weingarten laughed, “however by way of my very own, these lyrics are a lot extra mature and sincere.”
Whereas earlier albums had their justifiable share of writing in character, that aspect is sort of totally absent right here. The one music in another person’s voice is “Rodeo,” which is sung from the attitude of their scorned ex-lovers. Regardless of it not being their very own ideas, the act of self-deprecation by means of the eyes of others by some means makes it one of the vital sincere songs on the album.
“‘Rodeo’ actually fell into place,” she mentioned. “The rationale why it’s my favourite music on the document is as a result of I don’t even bear in mind writing it because it was so quick. It virtually seems like we didn’t write it in any respect. I’ve loopy imposter syndrome once I hearken to it. There’s no not corny solution to say this, however that music wrote itself.”
The one different music on right here that rivals it in authenticity is “Tips on how to Breathe,” their first music explicitly a few lesbian relationship. It’s tender and serene regardless of the electrical guitar, a steadiness that wasn’t all the time there: “There was this bridge that was tremendous rock and roll, approach heavier. It’s so a lot better how it’s now.” Friedman’s voice bobs and floats throughout the string part, so sincere that they learn as nervous as they sing, “There’s a silhouette throughout my world together with her and I because the define.”
As Momma journey the again of this document, you may watch them obtain their delayed gratification in actual time. Three years after releasing a document about eager to be rockstars, the band finds themselves taking part in on Jimmy Kimmel’s late night time present, doing a plethora of press, and setting off on their subsequent headlining tour.
“There have been tears shed, whiskey photographs taken. It was superior, actually enjoyable stuff,” mentioned Weingarten.
“It may be onerous to step again and perceive that we’re like, really doing this,” confessed Friedman. “Moments like Kimmel the place we are able to all step again and hug and be like, ‘Holy shit. I can’t consider we’ve completed this…’ are probably the most lovely a part of working in a collaborative venture.”
In Welcome to My Blue Sky, Momma have been in a position to take the craziest, most private time of their life and flip it right into a document that’s uncooked, actual, and completely unapologetic.
It manages to be their most expansive work and remodel their discography, shrugging off the limitless nineties-era comparisons and making a reflective album that lets their followers in for the very first time.
As they step away from who they was, each Friedman and Weingarten enter into a brand new period of their lives and their music, one which’s marked by maturation and the willingness to lose somewhat to achieve rather a lot.
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“Welcome to My Blue Sky” – Momma
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