Soccer Mommy finds beauty in grief and transition

PHOTOGRAPHY Saskia Kovandzich
STYLING Yasmin Williams 
HMUA Saphron Morgan
SET DESIGN Ro Gearty
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT Carys Huws
STYLING ASSISTANT Vella Akhtimer
PRODUCTION, WORDS & CREATIVE Chiara Maculan
SPECIAL THANKS Prescription PR

As the warmth of summer fades into the cool embrace of autumn, the world around us seems to echo the very themes Soccer Mommy contemplates on her latest album, Evergreen – loss, longing, and the delicate beauty of what once was. The changing seasons remind us that nothing is forever, just as her new release captures the duality of loss: some days, brutal; others, strangely beautiful.

Singer songwriter Soccer Mommy, AKA Sophie Allison, has always candidly channelled her life experiences into her music, touching on the most universal ins and outs and emotional realities of coming of age. However, since her previous record Sometimes, Forever,, she’s dealt with a profound loss that compelled her to confront the most arduous of changes. From this, Evergreen was crafted with introspection and raw vulnerability, balancing bittersweet melancholy and glimmers of hope.

“A lot about loss is very sad, we picture it being devastating and life ruining, and it is in a lot of ways, but it also makes you really cherish things and hold onto them in a really beautiful way, and feel connected to the person that you have lost, and see them in a new light.” she points out, as she reflects on the biformity of mortality. 

The songstress navigated the tension of being honest about that pain while also pressing on its bruise by cathartically charging her lyrics with vulnerable emotional depth. “I’m an over-analyser. I’m just constantly thinking about stuff,” she explains. “Writing and making songs out of it gives you this concrete explanation of how you’re feeling. When I look back at it, I can see all the different ways I was feeling, and I can learn from that, taking them forward and trying to get further.”

Just as the unapologetic songwriting lays Allison’s emotional journey bare throughout the album, Ben H. Allen III’s production (Deerhunter, Animal Collective, Youth Lagoon, Belle and Sebastian) is stripped back, favouring sweeping acoustic guitars, rich drums, and interweaving flutes, candidly fulfilling the role of attending to the raw lyrics. “I wanted [these songs] to really speak for themselves, and all of the production to be light and accompany them, lift up the core tracks, making them feel intimate, soft, and gentle,” continues Allison.

Following the introspective opening track ‘Lost’, an incontestable feeling of longing is palpable on ‘M’, and almost finds resolution in the hopeful chorus of ‘Some Sunny Day’, comforted and adorned by what the artist calls “reminders” of dear lost ones that remain in our universe even after they’re gone. “As weird as that sounds, it’s like that person is still a part of you, and their energy is still everywhere, it’s in things you see, it’s in the little reminders,” she points out. “A lot of things on the album are reminders, and sometimes it’s painful, but sometimes you can smile looking at something that reminds you of someone. It really helps not to just turn [loss] into this ‘woe is me’ and yourself into a martyr, but to see the balance and lean into it without drowning yourself on purpose.”

The lighter notes of Evergreen are epitomised in grungy and youthful ‘Driver’, and in humorous love track ‘Abigail’, an ode to eponymous purple-haired and sword-wielding Stardew Valley character and Allison’s witchy pixel crush. “When I was playing Stardew at the time, I pretty much always married her. I’d marry other people and divorce them to come back to her. She’s my favourite, it’s kind of crazy how much information I have in my brain about a fake character,” she reveals. “I thought there were so many cute things I could use to make this cheesy love song, so I did it, and ended up really liking it.”

Elsewhere, on the album’s most powerful tearjerker, ‘Changes’, Allison contemplates the ephemerality of existence, reflecting on the unsettling feeling of time passing unnoticed until it’s too late to fully appreciate what’s been lost. “I actually wrote that song before this loss,” she shares, “when I was still in the studio for Sometimes, Forever, and I was really examining these moments in life where you notice that things have changed so much and you didn’t even feel them, and it’s scary.” The gradual, almost imperceptible shifts in life can be frightening – one day, something deeply cherished might slip away without warning, leaving behind only the realisation that it’s gone. 

Throughout the record, this idea of change is deeply tied to Allison’s evolving understanding of life, especially as she grows older. While she once struggled with accepting it, like when she went away to college and couldn’t return to the life she had before, she now sees it as a necessary, even beautiful, part of growing. Change, she acknowledges, doesn’t signify an end, but rather a transformation, an opportunity to learn and redefine oneself. “It doesn’t have to mean that things are over,” she reflects, “It can just mean they’re different.” 

Perhaps because it seems our cultural landscape has evolved (or devolved) away from the values and dreams that we held close to our hearts growing up, nostalgia is really one of the main forces driving our generation. But is there a limit to how long we should hold on to the past, or is it something that constantly shapes us? 

Allison confronts this quandary in melancholic tracks ‘Thinking Of You’, and ‘Salt in Wound’ where she explores feeling stuck in the memory of what’s lost. “So much of what I love reminds me of being young. We always hang on to the past, I think there’s the difference between that and learning from it and letting it be part of us, because it really does shape you, so much of who you are is what you’ve learned, and what you’ve regretted, but I think there is a limit to it where you start missing out on your life a little bit,” she points out, reflecting on the disillusionment felt by today’s youth. “I think our generation has a big obsession with seeing things so black and white, but that’s not what human feeling is, and you don’t have to shy away from it. You’ve got to give into it and let yourself enjoy thinking of something that you don’t have anymore, and feel alive from it with nostalgia.”

Allison’s stirring lyrical and evocative storytelling abilities are unmistakable in gloomy ‘Anchor’, where she painterly creates a cold, stormy ocean scene with the lyrics: “Floating on an icy sea I thought of something warm/I thought of your love / When we left the harbour I was certain of my path/There’s no turning back” and later in the track: “I was softly bracing when I finally felt the waves beginning to change / When the skies grew darker and the water took control / There was nowhere to go.” 

Worldbuilding is consistently central for the songwriter, who herself enjoys being transported into sensory and almost visual experiences by cinematic music. “I think every song should feel like its own moment, you want to get lost in it,” she remarks. “You put on an album and that’s like you’re someone else today, you are in a different vibe. At least that’s what makes me love listening to stuff.  Fall happens, I’m putting on Dummy by Portished, and I’m in a mood.”

Visually, the universe of Evergreen borrows plenty from the natural world and its unconquerable forces, inspiring and almost sustaining the artist in her journey and evolution of a bittersweet adulthood, its darkness and struggles just as necessary as a happy and hopeful sunny day. “I pull a lot of lyrical ideas from nature, because I’ve just been living somewhere that has a lot of green and that’s such an easy way to see beauty in the world around you and reflect upon it, which I am constantly doing,” she explains. “I really wanted it to feel connected to that and get that same feeling sonically,  like being outside on the perfect sunny, cool day and just getting that world locked in.”

Allison’s writing has always been very reflective, often employing references to driving and nature, and despite acknowledging possible changes, she’s sure those themes will keep accompanying her. “I like to write about how I feel and relate it to the world that I’m seeing and sitting in. The actual place that I’m at and where I live has a lot of that, so those themes will probably stick around,” she assures me. “I don’t know how that’ll change sonically, but we’ll see where it goes.”

As the seasons keep shifting, Soccer Mommy’s latest album feels like a perfect, layered soundtrack for introspection, capturing both the warmth and chill of change. Much like the quiet transformation of autumn to winter, as dark nights draw closer and amber leaves fall from their branches, Evergreen invites us to embrace the bittersweet, and how beauty persists even in loss.

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