ALBUM REVIEW: Soccer Mommy’s Intimate Indie Rock is ‘Evergreen’

Four albums in, Soccer Mommy (the moniker of Sophie Allison) is pulling off a kind of magic trick by staying true to who she’s always been. Evergreen is the same intimate bedroom indie rock that first drew fans into her orbit, stripped down and deeply honest, and lit by just the softest nightlight glow. Even as she adds more texture to her arrangements with each album, that minimalist, demo-like spirit is ever-present, firmly planting her songwriting at the unshakable center. There is nothing to distract from her diaristic explorations of control and complacency, loss and nostalgia, fantasy and harsh reality. Fantasy, in particular, plays a crucial role on Evergreen, allowing Allison to poke harder at some of her more complex feelings through the surreal lenses of other worlds.

Evergreen is haunted by the memory of a person that seems to infiltrate all aspects of Allison’s existence, waking and sleeping. She can never escape it, vacillating between whether she actually wants to or not, though it all seems more vivid in her dreams. “Salt in wound/to think of you is pressing on the bruise,” she sings on “Salt in Wound,” a standout thrasher, all dark waves anchored by Allison’s lullaby-like coo. “Dreaming of Falling,” ethereal even with its quietly driving percussion, finds her trapped in a subconscious state that, if painful, still might be a safer place to inhabit. “A sliver of sunshine against my skin/Burns through the curtains now,” she sings. “But seeing the light is an awful trick/When I keep going down.” The fantasy world comes into play most on the up-tempo pop sparkler “Abigail,” a song that feels signature, like instant Soccer Mommy canon. A character from the game Stardew Valley steps into the three-dimensional world in full technicolor set to Allison’s sugar-sweet melody. It’s a love song for the virtual age.

Never a stranger to darkness, Allison writes and sings with especially stirring melancholy on “Lost” and on the album’s title track, bookends of Evergreen that evoke a feeling of hope in different ways—the former sonically, the latter lyrically. Allison isn’t just dwelling, she’s reflecting. Where Allison grounds Evergreen is in the mundane tasks that fill her days, the going-through-the-motions that becomes essential amid unimaginable grief. “How long is too long to be/Stuck in a memory?” she sings on the wistful “Thinking of You.” Sometimes not even an alternate universe can offer escape from the heaviest times.

Soccer Mommy’s Evergreen is out October 25, on Loma Vista Recordings.