Soccer Mommy – Color Theory
At only 22 years old, Nashville singer-songwriter Sophie Allison seems to have hit her quarter-life crisis early on her sophomore album Color Theory. Themes of depression, illness (physical and mental), and mortality are the three pillars of her new album’s foundation, as Allison uses blue, yellow, and grey to capture each element respectively.
While most 22 year olds are trudging their way through university, internships, or world traveling, Allison has instead been using music as a catharsis to deal with years of depression and self-harm, her mother’s long-term physical illness, and a premature understanding of human mortality. While kids were discovering Santa Claus is a hoax, Allison seems to be one that clued in that everyone around her are temporary parts of the life cycle – the ultimate metaphorical lump of coal.
“My mom has been terminally ill since I was a pre-teen, and I never really found a way to deal with it,” Allison says. “Watching my parents age and witnessing sickness take its toll made me think a lot about the cycle of life, and forced me to confront the paranoid sense that death is coming for me”.
The vintage and warped sound on the album creates a nostalgic aesthetic, providing a deeper look into the hauntings of her past. Old cassettes and dusty CD cases may bring light of an easier time of fleeting simplicity and beauty for some people. But for Allison, those old memories are hazed over with pain and emotional hardship. Many of the songs on Color Theory have strong ‘90s, bedroom haze of lo-fi and shoegaze origins, making it easy to get lost in the nostalgic feeling – which seems to be bittersweet.
The first part of the album (the colour blue) represents Allison’s struggle with depression, and her vocals manage to stay bright while the interior of her words bring out the darkness in her mind, as is the case with many suffering from depression. Despite the heaviness and darkness of the album, there is still a warm, and colourful element to the song’s melodies. Allison brings in some pop aspects to her writing, bringing out her childhood influence of Avril Lavigne into her songs, especially on lead single “circle the drain”. Her mellow vocals manage to draw listeners into a trance-like state of comfort and anxiety simultaneously as she laments “things feel that low sometimes / even when everything fine / I’ve been falling apart these days”.
On the latter parts of the album (yellow and grey), she trades pop for more lo-fi ballads, as is the case with the 7-minute “yellow is the color of her eyes” where Allison opens up about the anxiety involved with watching her ill mother progress. The result is an encompassing and haunting realization, before the album switches gears into the “grey” of mortality. “stain” and “gray light” play with the darkness of minor chord progressions and slow, dreary guitar strumming as she sings about understanding the imbalance of dark and light in life.
Allison’s aforementioned ability to create a feeling of anxiety and tension, while also creating a comforting and caring environment is entrancing on the new record. Color Theory carries with it the same sensations of staying up on the corded phone in your room talking to your friend late at night on a dreaded Wednesday evening; swapping pains and stories for relief and companionship. It is a matured and heavy album, illustrating how Sophie Allison is performing and thinking well beyond her years.
8/10
Tour dates:
03/16 – 03/22 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
03/26 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse*
03/27 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle*
03/28 – Washington, DC @ 930 Club*
03/31 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer*
04/03 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel*
04/04 – Boston, MA @ Paradise* SOLD OUT
04/05 – Boston, MA @ Paradise*
04/07 – Montreal, QC @ L’Astral
04/08 – Toronto, ON @ Phoenix
04/09 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop*
04/11 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall* SOLD OUT
04/17 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall^
04/18 – Madison, WI @ Majestic^
04/19 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave^
04/22 – Denver, CO @ Gothic^
04/24 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Commonwealth Room^
04/25 – Boise, ID @ Deathproof Coffee^
04/26 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom^
04/27 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos^
04/29 – San Francisco, CA @ Fillmore^
04/30 – Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda^
05/01 – San Diego, CA @ The Stage Room at UCSD^
05/02 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom^
05/03 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf^
05/05 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s^
05/06 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall^
05/07 – Dallas, TX @ Granada^
05/09 – Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom^
05/17 – Guadalajara, MX @ Corona Capital Festival
06/04 – Oslo, Norway @ Parkteatret
06/05 – Stockholm, Sweden @ Slaktkyrkan
06/06 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Hotel Cecil
06/08 – Hamburg, Germany @ Molotow
06/09 – Berlin, Germany @ Frannz Club
06/11 – Koln, Germany @ Bumann & Sohn
06/12 – Hilvarenbeek, NL @ Best Kept Secret Festival
06/13 – Brussels, Belgium @ La Botanique
06/15 – Paris, France @ Petit Bain
06/16 – Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2
06/18 – London, UK @ Electric Ballroom
06/19 – Bristol, UK @ Trinity
06/20 – Birmingham, UK @ The Castle & Falcon
06/22 – Leeds, UK @ Belgrave Music Hall
06/23 – Glasgow, UK @ St. Luke’s
06/24 – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla
06/25 – Leicester, UK @ O2 Academy Leicester
06/28 – London, UK @ Finsbury Park #
06/30 – Dublin, IE @ Trinity College %
07/02 – Barcelona, SP @ Vida Festival
07/17 – Louisville, KY @ Forecastle Festival
08/02 – Montreal, QC @ Osheaga Festival
*w/ Tomberlin
^w/ Emily Reo
