Having an existential crisis is peak girlhood

Review of Soccer Mommy’s Sometimes, Forever

Soccer Mommy — Sometimes, Forever

Released June 24, 2022

We all know this type of person — they only listen to albums they find on bandcamp, they feel a moral superiority over listening to artists with the lowest number of monthly listeners, but still gatekeep when you ask them who they’re listening to, and they disguise their hatred of anything pop or mainstream as “having taste.” Maybe you think I am this person. There was a time where to prove how much of a fan you were of music meant having to be a snob about it and sometimes that can be a hard mindset to break and as much as I try to be self aware, I know that I have the ability to come across as snobbish, so fair enough. My issue with this archetype or persona of person I’m describing, either rightly or wrongly, is not with how they enjoy their music, but it’s with how they judge how others enjoy their music.

Going into this album, I thought this was a band that this snobbish Pitchfork acolyte would love. But instead I was SO surprised at how confessional, deeply felt, and raw the writing is. Honestly for thinking this was indie dude bro kind of band, I realized this is a teen girl diary kind of album like Clairo and Phoebe Bridgers and all the women songwriters that I assumed indie dude bros were too cool to listen to.

Sophie Allison, the artist behind the moniker Soccer Mommy, is in the neighborhood of ’90s alternative acts like Mazzy Star with some definite grunge influence. One word I could use to sum up this album is OUCH. The lyrics cut so deep and feel like they’re coming from a real introspective place as Allison navigates her internal life and conflicting emotions.

The album closes with a song “Still” which includes the lyric “I don’t know how to feel things small/It’s a tidal wave or nothing at all.” As a chronic overthinker, this line hits. And that’s what so incredible about honest writing like this, if you can relate to what a songwriter is writing about, it feels life affirming. Like someone can finally put words to this thing you’ve been feeling and that is in-and-of-itself so liberating, nevermind being the one to put the words to the feelings.

My favorites on this album include “Bones,” “With U,” “newdemo,” “Don’t Ask Me,” and “Still.”

“With U” specifically has that Mazzy Star sound with a tinge of Letters to Cleo, which I listened to a few weeks ago. It’s moody and it kinda sounds like you might hear it in a movie or as the song that plays during the credits of a One Tree Hill or Gilmore Girls episode.

Other songs have a grungier, rockier vibe with “Unholy Affliction” sounding like Nine Inch Nails or early Billie Eilish, a la “you should see me in a crown” and “Shotgun” having that classic 90s grunge Nirvana-like sound.

What particularly stood out to me about the writing was how it more cleverly described imagery that writers have been using forever. Like “I’m a bullet in a shotgun waiting to sound” is such a cleaner, smarter way of describing that anticipation that other writers have used gun metaphors to describe. “newdemo” also reminded me lyrically of Taylor Swift’s “I Hate It Here” from this year’s The Tortured Poets Department, but I thought this Soccer Mommy iteration proved a better proof of concept about imaging your way out of the current predicament.

“Darkness Forever” has a floaty underwater feel that also feels reminiscent of early Billie while “Following Eyes” has great storytelling and imagery. “Feel It All The Time” sounds like, with different instrumentation, it could be a country song especially with its personification of a truck.

It’s hard to talk about this album without acknowledging the fact that I’m listening to it through the lens of being on my own journey of trying to understand my own conflicting emotions in this weird transitive season that is your early to mid 20s. Allison herself is only two years older than me, meaning she was the age I am now when this album came out. All of the things Allison writes about on this album feels like it was taken from some shared diary. Makes me want to lie on the floor and pretend I’m in the dramatic midpoint of a teen movie just before the lightbulb strikes me of how to change my whole life around. I’m still waiting for that lightbulb, by the way.