You’ve got… not that much ‘splaining to do, actually…
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[7.12]
Josh Buck: Is Soccer Mommy’s final form just a full on stadium rocker? Sophie Allison has gotten louder with each release of her young career, but the all-out grunge of “Lucy” is a new high point. She continues to be preternaturally gifted at crafting protagonists that are sad but not self-loathing, and never over-writing her lyrics. Lines like “The face of an angel/With the heart of something less nice” are vivid in their vagueness. Add in some distortion and demonic imagery and you have Spooky Season Sophie. Me and my flannels are here for it.
[8]
Julian Axelrod: Soccer Mommy songs either do nothing for me or change my life. Luckily, “Lucy” leans toward the latter. That twisting, thorny guitar riff is one of her best, scraping against the edges of the groove and mutating as the song grows deeper and darker. Her previous songs centered on the self, depicting Allison as the heroine in a hell of her own creation. But here she cedes the spotlight, crafting a queer gothic melodrama in which an innocent ingenue has the hots for Satan. The “quit taunting me” refrain almost sounds like “quit solving me,” a fitting aural illusion for a provocation with no easy answers.
[8]
Alfred Soto: The tug of the melody evokes early nineties college pop: think Juliana Hatfield. The guitars sound crisply recorded too. “Quit taunting me,” Sophie Allison begs, as if she liked the tension.
[7]
Will Adams: While “Lucy” preserves the sun-kissed, lo-fi indie rock of last year’s Clean, the songwriting lacks the same punch. The lack of dynamics in particular makes the five-minute runtime really drag; “Scorpio Rising” hits way harder in about the same amount of time. Sophie Allison remains just as endearing, though, which helps tip “Lucy” just over the edge.
[6]
Vikram Joseph: Clean was an intoxicating collection of steely, concise indie-pop and desperately fragile ballads with frayed edges that dragged in the earth and fluttered in the breeze. It’s hard to say whether “Lucy” feels comparatively charmless because of its elaborately fussy production, because it winds out over a wildly unnecessary five minutes, or because it sinks into a glutinous puddle of a chorus — take your pick, really, but it plays to none of Sophie Allison’s strengths.
[4]
Nortey Dowuona: A swamp of guitars, bass and slow threading drums swirls and spreads, pulling trees from the weeds that once existed, surrounded by a thick wall of green water. Soccer Mommy keeps playing, unaware of the slowly lapping water swallowing all of Middle America. As the factories are gulped, the ranches sunk, the entire continent finally splits, leaving a cracking hole in one of the most powerful nations in the world, with families finding themselves being buoyed by a clear, stead croon that raises them arm in arm, landing gently on flying clouds. Soccer Mommy gently pulls them together and the whole continent closes the break and lays all the families of the middle in swamp forest. Meanwhile, one of the guitarists tries to be funny and leaves their amp on too long.
[10]
Ashley Bardhan: Artists have been tussling with the devil in their art since before the devil was invented. Art, across cultures and time periods, loves to purge demons — to display them, to be seduced by them, to cry out in spite of them. On “Lucy,” Soccer Mommy joins this tapestry of miserable allegory, telling us about all the “taunting” Lucy plagues her with, how “You cannot resist him / When you look in his shiny eyes / The face of an angel” while backing guitar glitters dangerously. In Biblical Hebrew, “Satan” tends to be translated as “adversary.” We all have one, don’t we? Might as well listen to a scuzzy, spooky track while confronting yours.
[7]
Oliver Maier: “Lucy” being Lucifer was already a pretty corny pun when Kendrick did it four years ago, and Soccer Mommy’s temptation-themed lyrics don’t really capture the imagination. What she does do is build excitingly on the ’90s throwback vibe of last year’s Clean, bringing the same ear for hypnotic, clockwork melodies but multiplying the lush layers of guitar and hinting at something grander than her bedroom pop roots afforded.
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