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Live Review: Soccer Mommy kills her boyfriend in 'Your Dog'

18 January 2018 | 10:38 am | Kyle Fensom

Soccer Mommy kills her boyfriend and deals with the emotional aftermath in the bleak but funny video for the lead single off her debut album, 'Your Dog'

Singer-songwriter SOCCER MOMMY (aka Sophie Allison) has been quietly refining her craft for a few years now, recording in her Nashville bedroom studio before gathering up the best of her Bandcamp releases and reinterpreting them with a full band in last year’s Collection. She recently announced the arrival of her debut studio album, Clean, by sharing the lead single, ‘Your Dog’. Appropriately, like the album in general, that single and its recently unveiled visual companion represent new artistic territory for Soccer Mommy, taking her out of her Nashville bedroom and into the world.

The ferocious opening line – “I don’t want to be your fucking dog that you drag around / A collar ‘round my neck, tied to a pole / Leave me in the freezing cold” – immediately demands your attention, as Soccer Mommy expresses her frustration at being pushed to the side of a relationship. The image of Soccer Mommy as being reduced to a pet is confronting, but speaks to the loud, energised tone of the song as compared to the spare vulnerability of her earlier work. Over fuzzy guitar chords, a chugging bass line and a propulsive drum beat, she rails against settling for less and instead asserts her self-determination and independence. It’s kind of shocking to hear from an artist who’s thus far been known for the softly-spoken intimacy and introspection of her bedroom-pop. Even more shocking than that: the video.

The visual companion, directed by Weird Life, plays as a bleakly humorous horror short, finding Soccer Mommy dealing with the emotional fallout of a violent outburst in which she’s killed her boyfriend. Like the song, it’s confronting but still maintains the charmingly lo-fi indie aesthetic of her bedroom pop.

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In the aftermath of her outburst, Soccer Mommy seems confused, as evidenced by her apathetic, comical efforts in trying to dispose of her now-ex-boyfriend’s body: she draws a face on him in texta, plays video games in the middle of the crime scene, joyfully dances around in front of him, tries to haplessly drag him up the stairs, and even betrays a tinge of regret when she cuddles up next to his lifeless body. In this way, the video dramatises the spectrum of weird, often confusing and contradictory emotions and impulses felt in the wake of a relationship’s dissolution.

Like the track itself, the video unspools like an irrepressible, spontaneous expression of pent-up emotional rage; Soccer Mommy’s boyfriend’s murder standing as a metaphor for the sudden, messy ends these toxic relationships come to, when their true end might have been unceremoniously reached long ago.

Clean by Soccer Mommy will be out March 2nd via. Fat Possum – you can preorder it here.

WORDS BY KYLE FENSOM

IMAGE: Weird Life

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