If Merpire (aka Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt) used her debut album Simulation Ride as a means of exploring her vulnerabilities and faults as a human, her follow up MILK POOL is a means of exploring the same weaknesses through a different lens. The second album from the Naarm/Melbourne singer has her living a second adolescence of sorts, writing like she’s embroiled in all the drama and anxieties of being in high school. Feelings are big, angst is elevated, and everything is laid out like it’s the most important thing ever.
MILK POOL – an almost visceral title chosen to capture “the murky fluidity of the action [it] took to create it”- comes with a darker hue too. An artificial glow against a body turned away transplants the summery colours and bright sunlight shining on Atkinson-Howatt’s face on the cover of Simulation Ride. “Rosanna” leans into the Mitski-like tone Atkinson-Howatt gestured towards on her debut, mixing in a hint of Billie Eilish as drum pads flitter along and a punch-drunk melody mines a tone of embarrassment and worry. The dazed ire of “Canine” explores the moment of realization of an impending break up as Atkinson-Howatt bites her tongue so as not to ruin a family gathering. “Waiting by the fire / Watching as the flames engulf your head / From the rocking chair I sit in,” she sings with daggered eyes. “Internet” is a piano ballad draped in low light as questions an infatuated teenager might ask get thrown into a search engine; “How do you know if somebody likes you? / How do you read their body language? …What are the lyrics from that song she sent?”
Exploring familiar anxieties through a different lens brings with it some fun pep too. Opening track “Leaving With You” has Atkinson-Howatt tired, but staying at a party because a crush just walked in. “Will you let me down tonight? Lying with that mouth I want,” she asks as a hint of feverish grizzle colours the edges of the song. “Fishing” channels that teen spirit with calls of being “just another bunch of misfits trying to do right / we’ve got enough shit to deal with” while “Bigger” is the most carnal thing here, capturing that voracious animal attraction over ragged synths and guitars. “Keep your hands where I can eat then please,” Atkinson-Howatt requests, the meaning impossible to confuse.
In a way MILK POOL is a more mature record, even though it’s written from a younger perspective. Its shadowier countenance consequently means it’s not nearly as catchy as Simulation Ride; there’s no earworm here that’ll be stuck in your head for days, but it does offer some benefits from digging deeper. Balancing that want for stability and being settled against having youthful thrills, “Retriever” has some clever lead-on sentences that are best appreciated by reading the lyrics alongside listening. “Internet” could be considered a pointed finger at the distraction of intuitive technology against human contact, while the acoustic “Cinnamon” warns of the power of evocative smell memory and not sitting in the past too much.
Merpire is still loitering around the indie slacker rock genre, and there’s still restlessness, unease, and uncertainty here; the outfit may be in a different shade, but it’s still covering the same bones. However, in coming at it from a different perspective, she lessens the dose of that important injection of giddy joy and replaces it with a duskier, hornier demeanour while exploring avenues of primal instincts and emotions. “I’m embarrassed how often I think about you,” she sings on “Rosanna”, capturing that coy, flush, overactive mind in a single sentence. It may not hit quite as promisingly as her debut and some tracks don’t do quite enough to distinguish themselves from others in the same vein, but in reliving her youth a second time round, her second step forward is one that moves her backwards a little – both deliberately and unintentionally.
