FEATURE:
Revisiting…
Soccer Mommy - Sometimes, Forever
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THE most recent…
PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Hur
album from Soccer Mommy (Sophia Regina Allison), Sometimes, Forever got great reviews where it was released - but you do not really hear it played much on the radio. I use this Revisiting… feature to look at albums from the past five years that were either overlooked or warrant new focus now. Sometimes, Forever falls into the latter category. Following on from 2020’s Color Theory, Soccer Mommy’s third studio album may be her best so far. I am going to get to a couple of reviews for it soon. If you are new to Soccer Mommy, then I would adviser to go back to her 2018 debut, Clean, and then work your way forward. Such a distinct songwriter and wonderful artist, her music warrants greater exposure and spotlight. Despite the album charting low in the U.S. and U.K., it was voted among the best of last year by many critics. The critical reviews were extremely positive too. Before getting to a couple of reviews for the amazing Sometimes, Forever, it is worth starting with an interview. In her chat with Rolling Stone, Soccer Mommy discussed the album and her relationship with social media:
“SOPHIE ALLISON LISTENS to a lot of country radio. “I hear all these songs about guys and their trucks,” the singer-songwriter behind Soccer Mommy says, calling from her Tennessee home a few weeks before her 25th birthday. “It’s so goofy, but it speaks to you, especially when you’re from the South.” That imagery inspired Allison to write “Feel It All the Time,” a hazy rocker about her own pickup. “It was a challenge to myself,” she says. “The idea of mentioning my truck in a song and having it not be, like, the cheesiest thing you’ve ever heard.”
She won that bet and then some. “Feel It All the Time” appears on her third studio LP, Sometimes, Forever, produced by avant-garde noisemaker Daniel Lopatin. “It’s important to constantly be trying to change yourself,” she adds. “I don’t ever want to be in a box.”
You’ve described the theme of this record as being that sorrow and happiness are not permanent feelings. What does that mean to you?
It’s about accepting that everything in life comes in waves. Nothing is really permanent. But, at the same time, so many things are forever. For me, that’s always been something that’s hard to grasp, because I’m a very concrete thinker. I want to be like, “This is how things are, and there’s a reason.” Especially when it comes to emotions, I’ve always been wanting to be able to pinpoint why I feel the way I feel and how to stop it if I’m not enjoying it, or how to move past it. That’s just not the reality. The reality is that things come and go. They’re always going to return.
That’s why I wanted to make [Sometimes, Forever] the title. But the album is not really thematic like Color Theory. There’s a lot of opposites pulling at each other, conflicting thoughts and feelings, even on specific songs. It’s the way my life goes.
There’s some intense imagery on this album — like the line on “Darkness Forever” where you allude to Sylvia Plath’s suicide. How did you get there?
The song got started when I literally had the thought, “I could imagine why you would want to do that.” At the time, I was feeling very overwhelmed and paranoid, and my brain was on fire. The song is about taking that and twisting it into this idea of burning down your house and everything in it, including yourself, to expel the demons that live within you.
PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Hur
There’s a sense of magic on the album, too.
That’s funny, because me and Dan would joke, “We’ve got the normal songs, and then we’ve got the evil songs, and the magic songs.” There is a lot of dark fantasy and some mysticism happening.
On “Feel It All the Time,” you sing, “I’m just 22 going on 23/Already worn down from everything.” How do you feel now, in your mid-twenties?
That song is one of my favorites, from a songwriting standpoint. I’m making this metaphor of comparing my body to my truck, because it’s a 2002 — it’s pretty old. I was comparing my life span to this truck’s life span and wanting to cling to this freedom: just driving my truck on a long road with the window down, this lightness of time, and stress not existing.
Do you miss the DIY scene you came up in, playing small venues in New York like Silent Barn?
Oh, my God. I loved Silent Barn. My first-ever show as Soccer Mommy was there. It was fun and exciting. All these cities have their own DIY scenes where it runs on people’s generosity — it’s so community-oriented. It’s a much more fun way, until you get to a point where I could no longer do that, even if I wanted to. You’d get mobbed. Venues that don’t have space for you to be away from people can be a little bit uncomfortable and creepy. It’s unfortunate that you can’t just do that forever.
Has fame lived up to your expectations?
I do not enjoy it. But I also never thought that I would particularly enjoy it, either. I never was like, “When I’m famous . . . ” I’m just not very comfortable with strangers. I’m a Gemini. I’ve become more reclusive, for sure, but I’m fine with it. I can still go out to a show in Nashville. I don’t think I’m some celebrity that can’t go out”.
I am going to move onto some reviews. So many glowing and impassioned reviews for a magnificent album. It is a shame that the songs from Sometimes, Forever are not really heard that much on the radio. Let’s hope that this changes! In their review, this is what CLASH noted about Soccer Mommy’s third studio album:
“What is a dream but a light in the darkness, a lie that you wish would come true?” On ‘newdemo’, Soccer Mommy offers listeners some of her most experimental exploring yet. True to the gentle vocals her fans know and adore, 25-year-old Sophie Allison blends atmospheric string sounds and new wave influences as she enters new sonic territory. From the way she embellishes tracks with tambourines and electronic flourishes, ‘Sometimes, Forever’ is a marker of a completely new era.
On her second single ‘Unholy Affliction’ a darker, more mystical side was teased, her most haunting yet, until we reach the magical ‘Darkness Forever’. Here, the singer’s angelic vocals are placed against an unsettling backdrop. Haunting synths and grungier guitar riffs linger as the songwriter provides intense imagery, alluding to the suicide of Sylvia Plath.
Whilst embarking on a project that can be defined as broadening the borders of her trademark aesthetic, Soccer Mommy pens “I wanna know what's wrong / With all of the ways I am / I'm trying to be someone / That you could love and understand / But I know that I'm not.” Her unsparing lyrics and ability to create addictive melodies have not disappeared. Speaking directly to the most self-deprecating of us, Allison covers the common, everyday anxieties that plague our thoughts. “Bones” proves how the familiar can be amped up just a little more, to create a more expansive, yet comforting sound.
Closing with the intricate and introspective ‘Still’ Soccer Mommy sings, “I don’t know how to feel things small, it’s a tidal wave and nothing at all.” Encapsulating the beauty of Sophie Allison’s art in one line, the acoustic track reflects how ‘Sometimes, Forever’ takes risks, embodies the freeing, ephemeral nature of life, and the joy of following your inner monologue as you follow hers.
8/10”.
I will wrap things up with a review from The Line of Best Fit. Awarding it 9/10, they were hugely impressed by what they heard. Anyone who has not listened to Sometimes, Forever really to spend some time with it. The more you listen, the more layers are revealed. I did first hear it when it came out last year. I have been spending a lot more time with it recently:
“But nothing could prepare for the staggering emotional heights scaled on Allison’s sophomore album Color Theory, which centred around her depression and her mother’s terminal illness.
On the centrepiece of that album – the seven-minute epic “Yellow is The Color of Her Eyes” – she sang of her mother’s fading health and her inability to hold herself together in the face of it. “Loving you isn’t enough / You’ll still be deep in the ground when it’s done / I’ll know the day when it comes / I feel the cold as they put out my sun” are the song’s final lines. The song – and the album it accompanied – solidified Allison as one of the most talented musicians of her generation; the lyrics were awe-inspiring and harrowing, yet, the melodies were tightly wound and expertly crafted, leaving you with no choice but to play these songs again and again and again.
Allison’s third album, Sometimes, Forever, sees the 25 year old Nashville singer-songwriter teaming up with legendary producer Oneohtrix Point Never, while continuing to create infectious melodies and pen dark truths. Though Sometimes, Forever does boast more of the pop-leaning, young love and heart-break anthems that Allison was originally known for.
“Shotgun”, the album’s lead single, signalled Allison’s return in this direction, “So whenever you want me, I’ll be around / I’m a bullet in a shotgun waiting to sound”, she sings, sounding lovestruck. Boasting a superbly catchy chorus, it's an anthemic slice of pop-perfection that captures those magical moments in a blossoming relationship where consuming “cold beer and ice cream” together and watching each other “stumbling in the hall” feels like the best experience in the world. After an adolescence spent writing about being on the receiving end of unrequited love and strained relationships, “Shotgun” sees Allison finally find peace in a healthy relationship; “You know I’ll take you as you are / As long as you do me”.
It would be a misnomer, however, to refer to “Shotgun” as being indicative of what the rest of Sometimes, Forever has to offer. Though “Shotgun”'s poppier tendencies carry through on multiple tracks here, Allison’s third LP spends more time focusing on crushing lows than it does euphoric highs. Sure enough, opener “Bones” functions as a sort of sorrowful sibling to “Shotgun”, with Allison pondering “what’s wrong with all of the ways I am” in the wake of a relationship that’s falling apart despite her best efforts. Despite this, however, Allison stumbles upon a revelation towards the song’s midway point, “I’ve bled you out and patched you up again / Far too much to call it love”. It may seem like a small revelation - one that could easily get overshadowed by the sorrow at the heart of “Bones” - but it’s a seismic victory, nonetheless; pinpointing the moment at which the realisation comes that the constant cycle of mutual collapse and repair represents merely an illusion of love.
Accordingly, Sometimes, Forever is an album that despite devoting most of its runtime to the nadirs of the human experience, finds its narrator perpetually striving for salvation. The transcendent, and fittingly rough-around-the-edges, “Newdemo” begins with Allison meditating on all the many disappointments of the world in 2022 before escaping into a fantastical dream, whose promise and limitations she is acutely aware of (“What is a dream / But a light in the darkness / A lie that you wish could come true”). On “Feel It All The Time” – a country-tinged number that evokes Sheryl Crow with a shoegaze edge – Allison pens an ode to her truck and its enduring promise of freedom (“I wanna drive out where the sun shines / Drown out the noise and the way I feel”). “Feel It All The Time” is the sound of someone who spent much of their adolescence battling depression reclaiming their twenties and going out into the world to search for the many allusive promises of youth.
As alluded to by its title, Sometimes, Forever is an album about the transience of feeling and the push and pull of existence. Such is a universal truth of being, and while reassuring, this journey through life’s many peaks and troughs can be dizzying. Such is given a voice on the stunning closer “Still”, which begins with the disarming line, “I don’t how to feel things small / It’s a tidal wave or nothing at all”. Across four increasingly alarming minutes, Allison finds herself getting closer and closer to the cliff edge as she scrambles to make sense of young fame, online abuse and depression. “Okay, you win, I’ll end my life”, she sings at one particularly spine-chilling moment before recounting driving to the bridge to do just, only to ultimately “overthink it”. Elsewhere, she tells of self-harm, feeling dehumanised after reading people’s comments about her and taking “white little pills” to “take it all away”.
It’s a staggeringly powerful, and admirably honest, piece of songwriting – one that leaves listeners wrestling with an indescribable sense of hollowness in its wake. Though an unconventional note to end an album on, it rings true to Allison’s portrait of life – namely that there are few easy, satisfying fixes to life’s toughest battles. Like Sometimes, Forever’s other 10 tracks, it’s an astounding artistic accomplishment that deserves to propel Allison to the very highest ranks of the indie world. Though Allison never fully finds closure on Sometimes, Forever – or at least not for very long – its very existence is a testament to its creator’s continued survival, and the music contained within is a reminder that even in their darkest moments, the listener is never alone – and need never be without hope”.
A magnificent and hugely impressive album from Soccer Mommy, the stunning Sometimes, Forever is one that everyone needs to check out. It is a pity the songs are seldom played on the radio – that may not be the case here, though it definitely is in the U.K. Go and spend a moment or two with a phenomenal album from…
A hugely gifted artist .