THE FRONT ROW

On a cool May night in Leeds, Soccer Mommy turned Project House into a softly spinning dreamworld. Touring in support of her 2024 release Evergreen, Sophie Allison delivered a performance built on understatement, introspection, and the quiet power of songs that ache more than they explode.

Opening with the glacial shimmer of “Abigail”, the set wasted no time immersing the crowd in Evergreen’s introspective fog. The choice was deliberate—this wasn’t a show chasing big indie-rock moments, but one revelling in restraint. From the first song, Soccer Mommy invited the audience to lean in and feel, not just hear.

Over the next hour, Allison and her band moved fluidly through Evergreen’s expansive textures. “Dreaming of Falling”, “Thinking of You”, and “Some Sunny Day” swirled with melodic melancholy, capturing the album’s ghostly beauty. The band’s control was precise—never overplaying, never forcing a crescendo. These were songs that lived in tension, offering space rather than spectacle.

“Salt in Wound” and “M” showcased the record’s range—from hazy folk-rock to gauzy dream-pop—while “Lost” added a layer of unresolved longing that hit especially hard live. At times, the music drifted toward the edge of silence, only to bloom in brief flashes of distortion or harmony. It was Evergreen as it’s meant to be experienced: immersive and patient, more felt than shown.

Still, the night wasn’t solely defined by the new material. Early in the set, “circle the drain” and “crawling in my skin” from Color Theory added sharpness to the emotional palette—darker, more anxious cuts that broke up Evergreen’s softness. There was also room for Sometimes, Forever to make a cameo, with “Bones” and the thunderous “Shotgun” offering welcome bursts of heavier fuzz and immediacy. The latter was one of the night’s biggest crowd responses, its chorus stretching far beyond the understated delivery elsewhere.

The set’s few nods to Allison’s breakout 2018 record Clean felt like handshakes to longtime fans. “Cool” still bites with its tongue-in-cheek swagger, and “Still Clean”—performed with aching clarity—reminded everyone how far she’s come without losing her original voice. Closing the night with “Your Dog”, the song that first made Soccer Mommy a name to watch, felt inevitable. Its slow, simmering defiance made for the perfect sign-off: quiet fury wrapped in a calm exterior.

Project House, with its minimalist industrial charm, proved the ideal venue for this kind of show. There was something intimate about the space that suited Evergreen’s hushed emotional language. The performance wasn’t flashy, but it didn’t need to be—Soccer Mommy’s strength lies in letting the songs speak, and tonight they spoke volumes.

Across 15 tracks, Allison demonstrated the full arc of her artistry—each record contributing a different shade, but all stitched together by that unmistakable voice and vision. Soccer Mommy’s evolution has been subtle, but nights like this show just how carefully constructed that growth has been. Evergreen might be her quietest record to date, but live, its emotional weight landed with force.