Soccer Mommy
Clean
Release Date: Mar 2, 2018
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Lo-Fi, Alternative Singer/Songwriter
Record label: Fat Possum
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Album Review: Clean by Soccer Mommy
Exceptionally Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
Opener "Still Clean" echoes sombre strums from 2017's Allison, but carries more cohesion than before, walking on new emotional terrain that offers themes of heartache and isolation. A polished indie pop sheen conceals an incessant envy and desire that runs through each verse of "Cool", which epitomes teenage, albeit adult self-deprecation - a view from the outside, the constant longing to be someone else. "Mary has a heart of coal, she'll break you down and eat you whole", she coos before breaking into an infectious howl of "I wanna know her like you / I wanna be that cool", continuing the carnal references from lead single "Your Dog", but juxtaposing them with more positive connotations of having power rather than "choking on [a] leash.
Based on rating 8/10
Sophie Allison makes an emotional commitment on Clean. The 20-year-old singer-songwriter, who goes by the pseudonym Soccer Mommy, confronts her internal contradictions with a helplessness that defines her age. A junior counterpart to other contemporaries such as Jay Som and Frankie Cosmos, Allison began to shape her voice by self-releasing her songs on popular music platform Bandcamp.
Based on rating 8/10
After reworking some of her Bandcamp-released bedroom recordings and compiling them as Collection last year, Soccer Mommy (aka Sophie Allison) has wasted no time by releasing Clean, her first proper full-length of brand new songs. Album opener "Still Clean" picks up where Collection's themes of abandonment and longing left off. Even-tempered, sweet guitar strums make way for one of Allison's most beautiful vocal melodies and stirring imagery.
'Clean'
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