PODCAST: Merpire on the release of her new album 'MILKPOOL'
Image: Rick Clifford
Published: 4 July 2025
Naarm/Melbourne's MERPIRE (real name Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt) today releases her second album MILKPOOL.
It is an album that showcases MERPIRE at her absolute finest, a mixture of indie, alt and pop with lyrics that see an artist explore who she is from all angles - sexuality, romance, her place in community, resolving past traumas - and perhaps finding herself for the very first time.
The soundscape of the album takes you through multiple moods, there is the guitar pop-rock of ‘Fishing’ which mixes harder, squealing electric guitars with gorgeously sweet melodies, while ‘Cinnamon’ is an impossibly dreamy, stripped back nostalgic ballad
Album highlight ‘Rosanna’ brings in a dark, glitchy, 1980s synth pop sound which conjures up a midnight drive along a deserted highway. There is a brooding, claustrophobic realisation that a friendship may actually be a lot more than that: ‘I'm embarrassed how often I think of you / No matter how good we get / I think we're in trouble, baby ‘
‘Internet’ begins as a moving, piano driven ballad that builds in intensity as MERPIRE sings of using the internet as a proxy life coach before realising she can figure things out on her own: ‘ Wait, don’t worry / My algorithm’s working this one out / I guess I won’t be needing you from now on .’
The album ends on the lo-fi, acoustic sound of ‘You Are Loved’, it’s sonic simplicity reflected in the heartfelt lyrics which is a constant repetition of ‘I am trying to remember I can be loved.’
MILKPOOL is arguably MERPIRE’s greatest work to date and is engaging, confronting, vulnerable and celebratory. She has a singular talent to construct music that pulls from multiple genres, with the subsequent mix tapping in to everything you love about music, no matter your genre preference - gorgeous pop melodies sit alongside hard guitars, and synths meld together with dark indie. A triumph of an album that will delight your ears, but will also make you feel deeply.
MERPIRE recently stopped by the Women In Pop podcast to chat all about the creation of MILKPOOL with Jett Tattersall and you can listen now on our website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all podcast platforms.
MILKPOOL is out now. You can buy and stream here.
Follow Merpire on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
