Soccer Mommy is the project of Nashville born, New York-based Sophie Allison. While her new album, For Young Hearts, is her first with bedroom pop pioneers Orchid Tapes, it’s actually her third full release, and has the sound of an artist who has found a self-confident voice. As the title suggests, the main focus of the album is love and relationships and all the complications those can bring to bear on a young mind.
Opener ‘Inside Out’ has a light skating synth line and elastic guitars and Allison’s warmly bored-sounding vocals delivering lyrics that are at once pained and nostalgic (“there’s a sort of feeling that you make me have / snow cones and your dad’s baseball cap”). Another stand-out is ‘Skinned Knees’, a grey and gusty bedroom pop song with strummed guitar and a gentle whistle. Allison’s vocals tell tales of the tumult of youth, of the titular skinned knees and faking stomach aches to get out of school and skinny dipping in the neighbours’ pool. It also hints at her relocation to New York:
“I left
burning streets in Tennessee
for a north east feel
but summer
always hurts think of you first
and your skin peel”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2930879765 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1066338808]
‘Bloody Honey’ has an almost bluesy rollick, while ‘Grown’ is murky and subdued, a song that takes on times a’changing and the existential worries of getting older. “It feels crazy that we’re getting so old”, Allison sings, “it feels crazy that we’re all so”. Closer ‘Switzerland’ is as straight-up a love song as you’ll find on the album. It sounds sweetly sad, just the stark twinkle of guitar and Allison’s vocals and an almost tangible negative space, as if recorded in a dark and empty room. Eventually a kick drum thuds and synths stir, threatening a cathartic crescendo that never quite arrives.
“we could go some place alone
don’t you see
we could go somewhere it snows
just you and me
we could go to Switzerland
never come back home again”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2930879765 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2483942785]
Soccer Mommy’s third release is undoubtedly centered on the pains of youth, but frames these struggles from a distance, both temporally and spatially. That’s not to say that this distance lessens the impact of the songs, but instead fogs them in a nostalgia that is both unpleasant and all-consuming. If this collection of songs is anything to go by, Allison has moved away but not quite moved on.
You can get For Young Hearts on sparkly gold cassette, or name-your-price download via Orchid Tapes or the Soccer Mommy Bandcamp page.
