Evergreen

Nashville's Sophie Allison has been releasing albums as Soccer Mommy at a fairly steady two-year clip since her rise as a classic Bandcamp success story in 2015. Her last, 2022's Sometimes, Forever, was produced by Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin and felt like a career highlight.Now comes Evergreen, another fine album, albeit less exciting and distinctive. It's certainly her most accessible work yet, but that compliment almost always comes with compromises, and Evergreen is no different. The songwriting is still excellent, and Allison's voice never been higher in the mix, but there are fewer surprises here overall, even with one obvious addition to her sound.That big addition is a fairly liberal use of classical chamber instruments — the mysterious flute outro on lead single "M" provides an early statement of intent that comes off strong; weaker are sections where these elements simply mimic bed tracks, replacing or accompanying Allison's guitar work unimaginatively (the incessant flute on second single "Driver" comes to mind). It all sounds perfectly fine (big-indie producer Ben H. Allen III, who's worked with the likes of Belle and Sebastian and Animal Collective, is behind the boards), but after the fairly inspired chemistry with Lopatin on Sometimes, Forever, this mundane retreat into traditional instrumentation feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Allen mostly just turns the "big and full" knob to 10 here.The good news is that this is mostly enough. As a songwriter, Allison remains compelling, with her own distinctive structural idioms that she keeps returning to — no one sidesteps the banality of the verse-to-chorus shift quite like she does. And although the already-well-mined lyrical themes are once again loss, memory and time, Allison's voice has never sounded better: resonant, clear as a bell and definitely the biggest beneficiary of Allen's traditionalist production style.The influences shine through nicely as well, coherent but not overbearing, with the ghosts of Pavement and Liz Phair in attendance, and at least two Radiohead Easter eggs that may or may not be intentional, effortless as they sound. Then there's mid-album highlight "Abigail," giving long-lost, happy tears-in-the-rain Cure vibes — arguably the closest Allison's ever gotten to fun in her music, and a decidedly successful foray.Things drop off a bit after this (although the moody college rock of "Salt in Wound" is hard to deny), but it's a gentle drop, a pleasant float into the blue of Allison's mind. It's a safe and comfortable journey, but you might find yourself dreaming of bigger adventures.