I love the speed at which Soccer Mom attacks their music, as well as the tonality and grit they use to pronounce each note; danceably dissonant. Their songs easily forgive the past two decades, and thankfully there are plenty of us still flying that flag (staring down at our shoes).
The packaging for Soccer Mom's self-titled album is pure and simple, and at home in its format. The cover art is all typography, toying with the opacity of blue, yellow, and red to introduce themselves. Song titles and 100m Record's logo are all that's necessary on the back; seemlessly continuing the starch white backdrop of the jacket. It would not be hard to imagine the words "Thrill Jockey Records" (in spirit of all things Sam Prekop) replacing the 100m Records logo (no disrespect meant by that; an honest admirable compliment) for this modernly designed release.
Soccer Mom makes great use of the larger format on their latest vinyl record, featuring three wonderful photographs in full color from Tom Bellotti, including one of the band themselves. With great consideration for this accompanying art form, Soccer Mom keeps the photographs free and clear of all distractions, gently placing their credits to one side of the insert (black and white ink, of course, to pinch a penny where you can / when you can; why not?).
I like to put the photograph of the band in my peripheral vision while I go back and forth between the other two pictures, imagining I'm watching Soccer Mom play live outside the illuminated house past dusk, or carelessly on the city streets of Boston as the pigeons retreat overhead.
The layout for the center labels are really what tickle my fancy. I'm simply always a fan of anything that bleeds over the edge of the stock; especially text; especially important text (such as a band's name). In this case, Soccer Mom refers to themselves as "SM," in which they allow the "S " to shyly tuck its head behind the black curtain of vinyl framing in the data. With the sans serif font theme carried throughout, the center labels stand to be as attractive as their patrĂ³n.
It is all very classic. It is all very 90s. Who's with me?!
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