Pom Pom Meltdown
Fight or Fall (Third Wave)
By Megan Holmes
Published: June 21st, 2005 | 12:31pm
Journalist Jessica Hopper once wrote in Emo: Where the Girls Aren’t that women were not well represented within the emo music scene: “Women in emo songs are denied the dignity of humanization through both the language and narratives…” Well what if women were the ones penning emo songs? What would change? Maybe the face of emo music, from wimpy, whining boys to fierce, strong women?
Portland natives Pom Pom Meltdown have written those songs. They are metal, they are emo, they are raw. They are three women expressing the intensity of relationships through bass lines, lyrics, their voices, and my headphones. The bass-heavy “Call If You Need Anything” is the best track on this record, with its incredibly dark and emotionally heavy introduction ripping into an emo-pop chorus and finally flowing into a Metallica riff.
Having played together for four years, it’s no wonder this band is as tight as they are. Still, it’s not an easy task to try to articulate their sound. We live in a time where comparing one band to another is easy because being original is hard to do. If emo-metal bands were as common as bands like Simple Plan, then Pom Pom Meltdown would be leading the pack. But thanks to their originality, they don’t have to lead any pack — they’re quite impressive on their own.
Issue #35
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