Soccer Mommy returns with the song Rings of Saturn

Soccer Mommy is back with a song about feeling small on purpose. Rings of Saturn is Sophie Allison's first release in two years, and she wrote it during a hard period when she would take her telescope out into the yard to look at the moon or the planets.

Her explanation of the song is short and unsentimental. Allison says it is about feeling lost and looking for hope anywhere it might be, and that there is something about feeling small that can take the weight off. The track is somber rather than consoling, which is the difference between an astronomy metaphor and a comfort.

The production is a step outside her usual circle. Elliott Kozel, who has worked with Rosalia and Bjork, produced the track, and the video was directed by Suji Park. Both are the sort of credits that mark a deliberate change of register rather than a continuation.

Her last album was Evergreen in 2024, followed by a stripped-back acoustic version, Evergreen (Stripped), the year after. Rings of Saturn is not attached to a named album, and neither Pitchfork nor Stereogum reports a label or a record to follow.

The live plans are firmer than the release plans. Allison heads out on a co-headlining tour with Snail Mail on 30 September, starting in Charlotte, and had already opened two shows on the joint Liz Phair and Sleater-Kinney run, the Flannel and the Fury Tour, the week before.

That Snail Mail pairing carries a decade of shared history. Both acts emerged in the late 2010s and were filed together from the start, so a co-headline tour about ten years into their careers reads less like a package and more like two people finally acknowledging the obvious.

Rings of Saturn and anything that follows it will show up on the release calendar. Our other indie coverage of Allison includes the tenth anniversary of her debut EP, and Liz Phair has had her own archive moment this year with two unreleased songs on a limited 7-inch.