Sophie Allison has always written candidly about her life, making Soccer Mommy one of indie rock’s most interesting and beloved artists of the last decade. Allison has used Soccer Mommy’s songs as a vehicle to sort through the thoughts and encounters that inevitably come with the reality of growing up. After all, Soccer Mommy began as a bedroom-to-Bandcamp exercise with teenage Allison posting her plaintive songs as demos. Over the years, though, she has often enhanced that sound, using the endless production possibilities, newly at her fingertips, to outstrip singer-songwriter stereotypes. The records would start with songwriting’s kernels of truth, and she would then imagine all the unexpected shapes they could take. Every Soccer Mommy record has felt like a surprise.    On Soccer Mommy’s fourth album, the tender but resolute Evergreen, Allison is again writing about her life. But that life’s different these days: Since making her previous album, 2022’s Sometimes, Forever, Allison experienced a profound and also very personal loss. New songs emerged from that change, unflinching and sometimes even funny reflections on what she was feeling. (Speaking of funny, this is a Soccer Mommy album, so there’s an ode to Allison’s purple-haired wife in the game Stardew Valley, too.) These songs were, once again, Allison’s way to sort through life, to ground herself. She wanted them to sound that way, too, to feel as true to the demos—raw and relatable, unvarnished and honest—as possible. The songwriting would again lead where the production would follow. Nothing overindulgent, everything real.

An insightful songwriter with a lyrical style that is both economical and evocative, Kevin Krauter crafts unique soundscapes that scramble a range of influences: ‘60s flower pop, ‘70s easy listening, ‘80s New Wave, ‘90s alt-radio, ’00s indie rock. In between tours with his band Hoops, the Indiana musician spent long hours in his basement, guitars and vintage keyboards his only company, and tested out ideas, explored new sonic avenues, savored new sounds, and taught himself how to play a few instruments. “I would wake up and have a cup of coffee, then I’d come up with a song or a melody and just sit and play it literally for three or four hours straight. Then I’d try to find new ways to play it, or do it with different notes or on different instruments. I don’t want to call it meditating, but it was pretty meditative to sit there by myself and play the same thing over and over and over and over.” The riffs and melodies became mantras, repeated back to himself until they became the rhythmically intricate, melodically bold, and emotionally complex songs on Toss Up. Recorded at Russian Recording in Bloomington, Indiana, Toss Up builds on the sonic worlds of his first EP releases (2015’s Magnolia and 2016’s Changes), conveying a similar mood with a greater array of instruments and influences. You can hear those vintage keyboards merging on “Keep Falling in Love,” which recalls R&B organist Timmy Thomas and West Coast marina pop artists Ned Doheny while showing off Krauter’s strong falsetto. “Rollerskate” audaciously marries a hypnotic keyboard theme to a loping drumbeat based on a popular ‘90s alt-rock hit.“I had been working on that guitar part and it sounded like another pretty folk song, so I thought, What if I put this weird funky beat on top of it? Most of these songs are very groove heavy.” That is the secret tension on Toss Up, the engine that drives these songs: melody propelled by rhythm, melancholy fended off by the exuberance of simply creating art. “A lot of the songs are about solitude in a very healthy sense, about trying to make it something useful and productive. It was good to center myself in that experience. I was able to get to a place where I was not afraid to be really stoked by what I was doing.” Or, as he declares on “Lonely Boogie”: “I’m all alone and I’m having a good time."