VOLCANO GIRLS

Brooklyn, N.Y. indie rockers Momma bring back molten-hot Big Muff fuzz on Household Name.

- JIM BEAUGEZ

ETTA FRIEDMAN AND Allegra Weingarten, co-guitarists and vocalists for guitar-heavy indie-rock band Momma, are sitting on a Brooklyn stoop, still buzzing after spending their morning chatting up one of their '90s alt-rock guitar heroes. "When I was a freshman in college, I taught myself how to play the solo from 'Number One Blind' by Veruca Salt," Weingarten says. "I did those hammer-ons, and I was like, 'Yo, what?' And it's crazy, 'cause we just finished having coffee with Louise Post literally an hour ago."

The duo surely picked up a thing or two about songcraft from listening to the guitarist's work with the recently reunited Veruca Salt. But their lingering buzz pales compared to the one that anticipated the July release of Household Name (Polyvinyl), Momma's third long-player.

Sequestered in L.A. during the pandemic, Friedman and Weingarten used the time to sharpen their guitar riffs and interplay, perfect their keen sense of melody, and construct a wall of guitars that rivals '90s touchstones like Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. Forget dropping Household Name songs like "Speeding 72" or "Medicine" on your playlists - the album is its own summertime playlist, a 12-song arc of shimmering and saturated guitars that shares its charms with seminal works by O.G. indie rockers the Breeders and Pavement.

It's a delicate balance to get the layers just right, but Momma have an ace collaborator in bassist Aron Kobayashi Ritch, a multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer who has worked on projects by Andrew Bird and Randy Newman. Ritch helped shape

Household Name's tones and textures, and with his help, that cheeky album title is becoming prophetic.

While the world hums, clangs and beeps around them on this sunny Brooklyn day, Friedman and Weingarten are the calm of their own storm as they talk guitars and their breakout new album.