The Singles Jukebox

“Your Dog” has its day…

[Video][Website]
[7.00]

Julian Axelrod: I’ve been physically unable to stop listening to Soccer Mommy for months, and I couldn’t figure out why. There are the obvious reasons: an innate ear for deceptively catchy melodies, a swaggering yet vulnerable vocal presence, a stone-faced silliness evident in the extended canine metaphor here. But there was a deeper connection here than I felt with most buzz bands. It wasn’t until I discovered “Your Dog” is about an abusive relationship that I realized why I’ve felt so connected. When I was Sophie Allison’s age, I was just starting to overcome the trauma of my own abuse. Suddenly I couldn’t not hear the song in that light: a steely, seething statement of purpose about weaponizing weakness and fear. Befitting the subject matter, it’s also one of her strongest, most confident songs yet. Of all the emotional milestones in processing abuse, there are few more rewarding than realizing you don’t care anymore. And say what you will about Soccer Mommy, but she certainly doesn’t sound like she cares.
[9]

Ryo Miyauchi: Sophie Allison’s Stooges inversion doesn’t quite pack the kick as she thinks it does. Blame the elementary rhyme schemes or her bashful voice, but “Your Dog” comes across more as a plea for emotional attention than a fight back to break free from her leash.
[5]

Will Adams: Amidst the shimmering guitars and Sophie Allison’s lilting vocal, there’s a lingering sadness in “Your Dog” that even the line “I don’t want to be your fucking dog” can’t hide. It’s a sobering but important take on the breakup song format; lashing out can feel great, but it ultimately stems from being pushed to the ground and made to feel less than.
[7]

Katie Gill: It’s a decent enough song, but it’s three minutes that feels like six. It’s cute and quirky indie, with enough filter on the vocals and guitars to hide any mistakes and smooth things out, and it’s boring the hell out of me. From the name to the sound to the lyrics, Soccer Mommy checks off all the “generic cute indie band” boxes on the checklist. Expect it to be playing in the background in an episode of whatever the current hip teen show is.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: Soccer Mommy’s lo-fi aesthetic, along with the slightly detuned guitar, gives me Exile in Guyville flashbacks. Which means: this is my kind of indie rock.
[8]

Jonathan Bradley: Blurry guitar lines and a stern bass cast gloomy shadows over “Your Dog”; it’s enough to leave Sophie Allison’s high and wandering voice sounding even more adrift than it would have already. In her lyric, she is a dog, she is leashed to a frozen pole, she is choked — stark images that belie the pretty arrangement. When the lower end drops out, she shifts for just a moment from an account that is interior and metaphorical to plain narrative description: “Always talk to other people/dart my eyes across the room.” She remains in the first person, but it’s like we get a glimpse of her from the outside, seeing her public face while these thoughts blow about her mind. It’s an interlude of everyday life that deepens the chill of the rest of the song, making it more enveloping and harder to escape. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: Sophie Allison tugs at her lines like a person balking at the restraints imposed by an asshole love even as her guitars chime prettily and the bass shows new levels of elasticity. “I’m your dog but not your pet,” Debbie Harry said once upon a long ago. Soccer Mommy remind us that nothing has changed.
[7]