Sometimes, Forever

Soccer Mommy

Released on 24/06/2022 by Loma Vista Recordings
Main artists: Soccer Mommy
Genre: Alternative & Indie

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There's a moment on the third album by Soccer Mommy—aka Sophie Allison— when she sings, on "Still," "I don't know how to feel things small/ It's a tidal wave or nothing at all." And while she's certainly hinted at such extremes in the past (including on 2020's adult-alternative hit "Circle the Drain"), Sometimes, Forever shows just how low she can go. As always, though, it's done with an almost-ethereal beauty; producer Daniel Lopatin has said that the Roches' 1982 song "Losing True" was a vocal influence for the record. "I'd say that song is the birth of dream pop," he told Pitchfork. "And Sophie's record is the death of it!" Indeed, "Darkness Forever"—which feels as dark and moody as Medicine or the Cocteau Twins—opens with the line "head in the oven ... simmering low." The music surrounding Allison is glitchy, claustrophobic, even monstrous, and then she pierces it with a scream like you've never before heard from Soccer Mommy. "Newdemo" sounds dreamy, twinkling even, but the lyrics are sad and terrifying, casting Allison as Cassandra prophesizing the world's demise as everyone else smiles for selfies around her: "Hear the city roar … There's nothing it needs/ But money and greed … A new conversation spreads like fire/ It's keeping us warm/ But I see a storm." "Unholy Affliction," too, is about capitalism and—more than any modern-day artist has addressed—the '90s quandary of selling out. "So carve me up and let the colors run," Allison sings while a dirgey storm brews beneath, building power from busily syncopated drums. "Following Eyes" is also dark and looming—Allison has said it's a rare moment that moves from autobiography to fantasy. A trampling rocker, it's told like a ghost story, with the narrator experiencing some sort of terrible apparition while driving: "I cut the engine and I watched her through the steam ... like no horror I had seen." (Allison swears it's not metaphor.) On chiming "Feel It All the Time," meanwhile, she declares "I'm gasping for air," then the vocals skip a tiny beat. "I'm just 22 going on 23/ Already worn down from everything." The kids may ultimately be alright, but these are trying times. "Fire in the Driveway" boasts a minor fall and minor lift that tug at the heartstrings in a major way. The Roches' inspiration is a fascinating one, and, as before, you can hear traces of early Avril Lavigne (an Allison favorite), Juliana Hatfield, and The Sundays. "Shotgun" is a winner, its dark and loungey guitar bursting into the light—like coming out of a movie in the middle of the day, when it's both disorienting and sort of a thrill to discover you still have daylight to burn. The song is "all about the joys of losing yourself in love," Allison has said, but of course it's filtered through that extreme perspective: "Uppers and my heart never meshed/ I hated coming down/ But this feels the same without the bad things." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

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Sometimes, Forever

Soccer Mommy

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