Ariel Pink - Pom Pom (2XLP)

On pom pom, Ariel Pink fuses warped nostalgia, lo-fi art-pop, and twisted glam-rock into a sprawling, eccentric 17-track odyssey. He digs deep into 70s/80s FM-rock pastiche, surf-pop slush, and off-kilter psychedelic detours — one moment offering jangly pop melodies like “Put Your Number in My Phone”, the next careening into campy absurdity with tracks such as “Jell-O” or “Sexual Athletics.”

Some songs shimmer with strange beauty and melancholy; others revel in the weird and the grotesque. This tension—between sincerity and satire, melody and noise—is what gives pom pom its uneasy power. The result is an album that’s as compelling as it is confounding: audacious, provocative — and uniquely Ariel Pink.