Sometimes, Forever

The irony of Sophie Allison calling her second Soccer Mommy album <i>color theory</i> is that the title would be a better fit for her third, <i>Sometimes, Forever</i>. Not only is this record more stylistically varied on a track-to-track level—the flinty, classic indie rock of “Bones” and “Following Eyes”, the industrial tilt of “Darkness Forever”, the country vibe of “Feel It All the Time”—but it amplifies the internal mixings that make Allison’s songs vivid: beauty and dissonance (“Unholy Affliction”), romance and violence (“I cut a piece out of my thigh/And felt my heart go skydiving” on “Still”), bitter wisdom and wide-eyed innocence (“Feel It All the Time”). She’s a devoted student of the ’90s, to be sure—but one who’s rapidly outgrowing her influences, too.