Evergreen by soccer mommy

Evergreen reads as an acoustic obituary. In many ways, it evokes earlier Soccer Mommy releases like songs for the recently sad. The music is more stripped back than the more recent Sometimes, Forever, placing Sophie Allison’s vocals front and center. However, a more visceral loss underpins her new release, the result of losing someone close to her.

Allison is aware of her waning youth; the passage of time dominates Evergreen. The album originated in 2022 when she penned “Changes,” in which she laments, “It’s hard enough to know that / Everything will fade to / Memory in time” over a cinematic string arrangement.

The majority of Evergreen grapples with grief. Allison has been open about her mom’s struggle with terminal cancer in the past, and it seems that this might inform her new album. She yearns for the past on the opening track “Lost,” while struggling to leave it behind on “M” with lines like “I feel you / Even though you’re gone / And I don’t mind talking to empty halls.”

Allison occasionally does venture into the present to discuss life beyond her loss; “Driver” imagines a loved one who will accept her tendency to disappear into her own thoughts, someone who “leads me back like it’s nothing to him.”

“Abigail” offers a rare, upbeat homage to what comes across as a crush. According to a press release, the track is actually “an ode to Allison’s purple-haired wife in the game Stardew Valley.”

Despite these respites, grief never strays far from Allison’s mind. She acknowledges on “Thinking of You” that she might be a broken record. “How long is too long to be / Stuck in a memory,” she asks. Her attitude shifts toward ambivalent acceptance in Evergreen’s titular and final track. The track’s lyrics and melody bring to mind Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged set. Listeners come away from the album haunted by memories that are not their own.

Evergreen is out October 25 via Loma Vista. Listen here.

— Dora