Soccer Mommy: Color Theory review – grief and depression given glorious voice

Many people who have had to contend with depression will recognise little truths leaping out at them from the second album by Sophie Allison, under the nom de plume Soccer Mommy. “There’s someone talking in my forehead that says I’ll never be enough,” she sings on Bloodstream; “I cling to the dark of my room / and the days thin me out / Or just burn me straight through,” offers Circle the Drain; “Sedate me all the time / Don’t leave me with my mind,” she asks on Crawling in My Skin. There’s a universality to much of her writing that belies that fact that she’s singing about specifics: about her own life, and about growing up with a mother with a terminal, long-term illness.

At the same time, though, Color Theory is a glorious record: the lyrics, delivered in a plain uninflected voice by Allison – melodic, but not in the least showy – are paired with tunes and arrangements that leap out. If you were listening to the softer end of US indie in the mid-1990s, you’ll recognise what is going on here. The downward spiral of the guitars on the chorus of Crawling in My Skin is blossomy; the seven-minute centrepiece, Yellow is the Color of Her Eyes, has a recurring motif that sounds almost like the ecstatic churn of a Wurlitzer at some ancient picture palace, even as it is wracked with sadness. That song, explicitly, is about Allison thinking of her mother while out on tour, and again the precision of the language is exemplary. Having introduced the fact that the whites of her mother’s eyes have become yellow, Allison makes them into “eyes like clementines”, an image that seems beautiful, until you realise how unnatural that would be.

Not everything is perfect; the division of the album into three colour phases (identified on the physical package) seems unnecessary – perhaps Allison sees lyrical and musical differences that a more distant listener can’t discern, especially when streaming. But when you hear a song as good as Lucy – about Lucifer, rather than a diss of Lucy Dacus, as has apparently been suggested – you don’t worry about that. Fabulous stuff: Soccer Mommy could go anywhere from here.