For the Record: Mom Rock’s “I Wish Every Day Was Today”

From basement shows in Boston, Mom Rock’s alt-rock sound packs a punch on their new album

For the record, “We’re in it for the moms and basement gigs” could be one of my favorite band tag lines ever. And no band does that tag line suit better than the Boston-based alt-rock quartet Mom Rock. Since forming in 2018, Mom Rock has amassed a following in the Boston music scene and have gained traction on streaming platforms with close to 40,000 monthly listeners, over 500,000 plays on their top track and more than 1,000,000 total streams on Spotify alone. The group has released 7 singles since 2019 and most recently their first project, “I Wish Every Day Was Today,” a 4 song EP that arrived on October 30th, 2020.

The band’s members — Curtis Heimburger (acoustic, vocals), Josh Polack (guitar, vocals), Wilson Reardon (drums), and Tara Maggiulli (bass, vocals) — combine forces to produce upbeat, punchy rock music that nods to influences of Weezer, The Talking Heads, and Catfish and the Bottlemen. One look at Mom Rock’s Instagram account tells you all you need to know – their funky style of monochrome outfits and makeup is infectious and fun – just like their music.

“I Wish Every Day Was Today” comes in at just shy of 11 minutes of music but is action-packed from the start. The lead song “White Funky Groove” plays as a short and fun intro that tells a story about dreaming of a dance with someone special. The first half of the song begins slowly with ambient background noise and a soft acoustic guitar. However, the tempo of the song quickly picks up as it coincides with the lyrics “And as the tempo got faster/My heart matched the speed/But then I woke up to find/It was all just a dream” that bring in the second half of the song flooded with high energy eclectic guitars and drums.

The second track “I Am the Same” follows with a similar build-up. Harmonious vocals and a heavy electric guitar riff create a catchy rock tune that speaks about people changing (or not) over time. “You should be pissed you didn’t change/Another year you are the same/Woah, Woah/And I would wait twelve months to the day/To say the same shit that I always say.”

Track 3, “The Afterlife” opens with a catchy bassline and gritty vocals that have you on your feet and nodding your head along right away. The EP closes with “Xylophone” the song that I think best displays the band’s heart and energy. Reminiscent of ‘80s/’90s rock and roll “Xylophone” is not only extremely fun to listen to but also helps raise awareness for the houseless crisis as the song was inspired by an interaction with a houseless person.

All in all, Mom Rock’s “I Wish Every Day Was Today” is an excellent EP that will give alt-rock fans some great new music. Every song features something a little different and puts the band’s talents on full display. Along with their music, Mom Rock’s overall persona and vibe is hard not to get behind, and I am looking forward to seeing where they go from here. If they continue to create music like this, something tells me they won’t be playing basement shows in Boston for much longer.