Pom Pom Squad's Mia Berrin really loves Alice in Wonderland. After she saw the 1951 Disney adaptation as a child, Berrin themed her bat mitzvah in its likeness. Desiring to explore and represent her sense of self with no barriers, Berrin's sophomore album Mirror Starts Moving Without Me portrays her as the titular character, Alice, creeping her way through an air of melancholia—and reverse-engineering the same emotions that defined her project's debut album in 2021.

Berrin shines when she chants mockingly, when she's posh, when she's dishing it out on a hater—essentially, sarcasm is her strong suit, and she plays it like a pro. In the ill-tempered "Street Fighter", she taunts her ex over a playful, uptempo breakbeat: she can hit you with that up, down, up, down, left, right!, an ode to the Japanese video game cheat code. And in "Spinning", she punches above her weight, with topsy-turvy vocal harmonies reminiscent of Olivia Rodrigo's "Get Him Back!".

A highlight of the album is "Doll Song", a heartfelt ballad in three-quarter time. The bridge interpolates The Sound of Music, and it's fitting; like Maria to each of the von Trapp kids, Berrin wants to comfort a younger version of herself, yearning to have been treated less awfully by a lover who once played with her emotions as if they were toys. Berrin wields her fragile voice like a single thread, fighting for visibility in the dark, suffocating her worst memories by the neck until the skin on her own fingers begins to hurt from pulling so tightly.

Other songs aren't as brought-to-life. In both the moderately paced "Everybody's Moving On" and the rock-themed opener "Downhill", her singing is clouded by uninspired instrumentals. For a concept album so personal to Berrin, the tracks feel devoid of vocal creativity, deprived of that sort of biting tonality that gives her music a grittier appeal she knows just how to execute.

Fortunately, she channels her better ideas into songs like the bratty "Villain", the 2000s-era rock anthem "Messages", and the skittish "Running From Myself". At the bottom of her rabbit hole, Berrin finds herself with fragments of thoughts that are stronger as a composite than as individual parts. She's been cut up by cards, spilt on by teacups, enlightened by lamps; when she settles at the bottom of it all, she finally accepts the truth that there's no turning back.

Favorite song: "Doll Song"