“I don’t wanna be your fucking dog,” Nashville singer/songwriter Sophie Allison announces sharply at the beginning of “Your Dog,” one of the standouts on Clean, her newest record under the Soccer Mommy moniker. “I want a love that lets me breathe/I’ve been choking on your leash.” The whole song feels claustrophobic; her voice is strained, the drums are rigidly precise, and the guitars swarm like angry bees. There’s no space to breathe, yet somehow, Allison carves out enough to make an indie rock anthem.
It’s the perfect thesis statement for Clean, an album that soberly reflects on growing up, clawing for autonomy, and seeking liberation from constrictive relationships, mindsets, and insecurities. It’s Allison’s proper studio debut (released via Fat Possum Records) and follows last year’s impressive Collection, which fleshed out bedroom recordings she’d previously uploaded to Bandcamp. (Speaking of Bandcamp, Soccer Mommy’s bio on the site self-describes as “chill but kinda sad,” which I can confirm is very accurate.) Wth versatile guitar work and her emotive voice, Allison grapples with feeling used and disappointed (“Still Clean”), longs to be as confident as the stoner girl at school (“Cool,” which contains the record’s catchiest hook), and compares herself to the girl who’s “bubbly and sweet like Coca-Cola” (the slow-building “Scorpio Rising”).
It all comes back to Allison’s strained declaration of independence on “Your Dog,” which, despite the Stooges reference, actually calls to mind lyrics from the Tom Petty song “Wildflowers”: “You belong among the wildflowers/You belong somewhere you feel free.” Fittingly, she closes the record with her own track called “Wildflowers,” where she sings, “Wildflowers don’t grow in the city/I dreamt the sidewalk broke in two.” Feeling free doesn’t come easy on Clean, but with “Wildflowers,” it seems like a possibility.