This artist was one of my favourite discoveries from 2017 and one of the most memorable performances I've seen this year. And yet this album still managed to surprise me. In at number 4 is Soccer Mommy with Clean.
Soccer Mommy still remains the only artist that I've ever listened through an entire album of beginning to end, stood in the middle of a record store. She's managed to grip me and keep me mesmerised in one spot with just 8 songs of music to drive to.
Stand-out tracks on Clean for me however are "Cool", "Your Dog", "Skin" and "Scorpio Rising". There's so much open space on this album to really hear and sit with the lyrics. Sophie Allison doesn't hide behind eccentric production or emphatic drums, she sings simply and candidly, and the familiarity rings strong throughout. Sophie paints pictures with her words and tells familiar stories under the guise of metaphor, like the depiction of her lover becoming a wild animal in "Still Clean". As lightly as her voice sings these words, the grit bites through in her lyrics.
Clean is short but so, so sweet. Whatever mood I'm in when I start listening to it just disappears and I'm left feeling calm and content by the end. As a studio debut, it's a memorable first look into the mind of Sophie Allison and seeing it translated into the coming-of-age soundscape of Soccer Mommy is almost dreamlike. It's easy to compare Soccer Mommy to other artists that have come before, but I suspect that she'll be setting herself apart from her peers a little more with future material.
Have a look at what just missed out on the Top 3 spot last year here.
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