Rocket – ‘R is for Rocket’ album review: pop punk for your inner child

Posted On October 2, 2025October 2, 2025

Time for a confession that could come back to haunt me: in my mind, there is no greater cinematic masterpiece from my childhood than 2003’s Freaky Friday.

It wasn’t just the plot itself that hooked me – although that, obviously, did play a role. Instead, its music was like my very first rudimentary awakening to rock and roll and to the edgy grittiness of punk, whatever I thought that meant inside my Disney-fied little brain. The reason I put my neck on the line right now to admit this is because listening to Rocket’s debut album, R is for Rocket, it took me straight back to that feeling: in some ways eye-opening, and in other ways a bit naive.

For the Los Angeles four-piece – consisting of vocalist and bassist Alithea Tuttle, guitarists Baron Rinzler and Desi Scaglione, and drummer Cooper Ladomade – creating a debut record which showcases exactly the gap they are trying to bridge as a band is the ultimate quest. With R is for Rocket, set to be released on October 3rd via Transgressive, the foundations of their musical education are laid bare far beyond the phonics. 

Clearly, like the very best alternative twentysomething outfit of rockers, the influence of the 1990s has been the ultimate mecca; the era just out of touch of their lifetimes, but still with so much shining knowledge and guidance passed down. It’s no surprise that, for this very reason, the sonic touches of Nirvana to The Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine and even Hole are littered throughout – not always paying the most refined homages, but still as messy and effervescent as their heroes ever were.

Songs like ‘Crossing Fingers’ and ‘Number One Fan’ display the full breadth of this, between thrashing electrics and brooding acoustics. It’s clear that in a collection of just ten tunes, Rocket have truly established themselves, but there is still a long way to go – their next steps should be focused on refining that fingerprint, so that their discography is definitively unique, rather than calling back to the relics of days gone by too much.

By the time you reach the album’s final track, the titular ‘R is for Rocket’, they throw everything at it to try and make sure the final notes of their first album are ones to remember. Clocking in at six and a half minutes long, the song is almost like a magnum opus before they’ve even begun; not poor or out of place by any means, but certainly proving how much further this band can expand. Give it a few years, and they could be a force; their first album is just the start off the blocks in that journey. 

Defining track: ‘R is for Rocket’ – Evidently, this is a band that wants to direct you to the heart of what they really are, so you may as well give them credit for it. 

For fans of: Classic pop punk and alternative rock, being brought into the fold of 2025. 

A concluding comment that I feel Rocket suits the mood for: “Mondays are manic. Wednesdays are wild. And Fridays are about to get a little freaky.”

Release date: October 3rd, 2025 | Producer: Desi Scaglione | Label: Transgressive

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