Dial Back The Flame

Soccer Mommy “Circle the Drain”

The best way I can explain the appeal of “Circle the Drain” is like when people make approximations of popular fast food and commercially produced snack items with superior ingredients. In this case the fast food item is a rock-pop ballad in the mode of the very late ‘90s/early ‘00s: think Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne, maybe a little Vanessa Carlton. The song evokes that general feeling but doesn’t go as heavy on the gloss or sentimentality. Soccer Mommy’s Sophy Allison is reaching for a more accessible – and at this point, highly nostalgic – style, but still retains a lot of her indie aesthetics. (To keep up the metaphor, consider this the artisanal ingredients.) She’s also a lot darker in her lyrics as she sings frankly about crippling depression, and without reaching any sort of conclusion or teachable lesson. The sort of misery she sings about here is an ongoing suck on her body and soul, and the best she can come up with in the short term is just “trying to seem strong for my love, for my family, and friends.”

Buy it from Amazon.