Square Loop Forgoes The Easy Way Out On "Mom Come Pick Me Up"

Square Loop, photo courtesy of the artist

Square Loop, a Worcester, MA-based band with ties to Philly digs their heels into their indie and emo influences on their latest LP, Mom Come Pick Me Up. With themes rooted in self-discovery and growing through the immaturity of your early 20s, this album is about becoming a person that you can actually come to like. With gripping and honest lyrics, guitarist and singer Dave Zielinski lays out what it means to feel like a shitty 20-something and come out on the other side, no longer copping out on easy escapes and learning to deal with difficult emotions head-on. That ideology is in the title itself. Mom Come Pick Me Up is an easy way out that we’ve all taken, but eventually we all must reach the age where we have to either bail ourselves out or learn how to come to terms with hard situations.

The innately emo soundscape that ties all of the songs on this release together continues to play on that overarching theme of surpassing life’s most immature moments. It was actually a sort of genius move. Emo and garage rock are rarely taken 100% seriously, but the lyrics behind the grunge guitar riffs and shouted vocals cut really deep. There’s a sense of conflicting dualities - needing to change and not wanting to grow up. The album opens with an instrumental track, “I Can’t Believe (Intro),” and it’s actually exactly the opposite of what the succeeding songs sound like. It’s like the revelatory track on what I’m going to boldly call a concept album. It’s the reckoning moment where the subject of these songs realizes they’ve got to change. It’s breathy and echoing and the monotonous loop comes back in one form or another in later tracks, making it integral to the theme, but not necessarily the defining sound.

The pace instantly picks up “I.C.B.Y.S.F.W.M.”, (I can’t believe you’re still friends with me), “Bird Funeral,” which reminds me so much of “Strain Your Memory” by The Menzingers, and “Basketball.” A lot of these songs’ vocal lines are very reminiscent of the stylings of groups like Pianos Become the Teeth and Modern Baseball, balanced purposefully with intricate guitar taps and gut-punching lyrics. The feel of sitting just on the precipice of Greg Barnett-esque shouts and then dialing back down is such a pleasing listen. The push and pull of heavy and light is expertly done, never overdoing one extreme or the other.

This is certainly an album that favors the spew of emotions rather than the dialed back, thoughtfully acoustic side of indie rock, though there are some quiet moments. “Death II” is a haunting piano ballad, and sits at the tail end of the track listing, right before the closer. With filtered and melancholic vocals, it’s reminiscent of “I Can’t Believe (Intro)” and brings back the repeating line from “Death to Hospitality.” It’s the moment where you think maybe things in this journey of self-exploration aren’t going to get better with its cliffhanger end, but the immediate transition into the final song, “Let’s Get Cathartic,” brings the listener back to a place of upbeat, though shaky, hope. It’s a purposeful way of showing that personal growth will never be linear and there will always be bumps in the road. What matters the most is that you keep going.

Mom Come Pick Me Up shines in my eyes. It was sort of the perfect album to sit with while quarantined with too much time for self-talk. I think anyone who’s living in their early-to-mid 20s can find something to resonate with, whether that’s kicking toxic habits, learning to like who you are, or forming more meaningful relationships with the people around you. None of this listens like a cliche, even though all of those things that I listed are. Trust me. I’m really glad I came upon this album when I did, and it will certainly be one I revisit.

You can stream Mom Come Pick Me Up below or anywhere you find music.