Soccer Mommy

Soccer Mommy, the moniker of Tennessee's singer-songwriter Sophia Allison, debuted under the influence of power-pop of the 1980s (think a female version of Matthew Sweet) on For Young Hearts (2016), that contains the first versions of Inside Out and 3 AM at a Party, and the charming guitar line of Switzerland, The short eight-song album Collection (2017), that reprises two songs from the debut and adds humble catchy ditties like Death by Chocolate, was a transitional work. Clean (Fat Possum, 2018) continued in that vein of introspective controlled power-pop with Cool and the barely more energetic Skin and Scorpio Rising, occasionally leaning towards the languid pop ballad (Flaw). Somewhere between War On Drugs and Phoebe Bridgers, but a little monotonous.

Color Theory (Loma Vista, 2020), produced by Gabe Wax, insists on that rather tedious and faceless melodic rock with a number of songs that mostly sound like opener Bloodstream and Circle the Drain so that the dreamy Night Swimming and the romantic Yellow Is the Color of Her Eyes end up being the real attractions.

Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) lifted Sometimes Forever (2022) from the monotonous lull of previous albums. Sophie Allison keeps singing her middle-of-the-road songs (the power-ballad With U, the power-poppy Shotgun, the country-esque Feel It All the Time), but Lopatin's electronic textures make a difference in the claustrophobic soundscape of Unholy Affliction. And he also injects shoegaze guitars into the lament Darkness Forever and turns Don’t Ask Me into a garage-rocker. And so surprisingly this ranks with her first album as one of the peaks of her career.