Picture a universe where Mazzy Star was raised in Luxembourg and feasted on rock instead of shoegaze, and you meet Francis of Delirium. An unanswered siren call in an English tongue, the band are living proof that teenage angst is inevitable the world over.
If the devil on your shoulder played guitar, she’d be frontwoman Jana Bahrich. When Jana swears in perhaps her best song, Quit Fucking Around, it’s as shocking and as enjoyable as hearing your older sister curse. She starts a club you want to be a part of; a call to arms for anyone who’s shouted their heartbreak into the void and come back emptyhanded.
Her words ring as true as the scrawled letters of love and madness on the walls of a city’s nightclub bathroom, but cut harder and taste like blood. People don’t clap for Francis of Delirium; they beat their chests.
In conversation with Renegade after her set, Jana describes her style of writing as “spontaneous”. It’s a word that sets the tone for her band’s philosophy. Watching her rock out, you’re not quite sure whether she’s going to tear her heart out or kiss the floor.
Listening to Soccer Mommy’s music is like watching the world through a smudged window. The shapes are indistinguishable and the noise is distant, but its beauty has never been up for debate.
They are a band that speak in a language that feels too beautiful to be English. Their music is a cacophony that seems closer to a call for prayer than mere song; a voice that sends you not to sleep, but to dream. If wind chimes were piped with electricity, the effect would be the same.
Sophie Allison - frontwoman and songwriter of Soccer Mommy - is haunting as she takes to the stage. She is dressed all in black, yet she demands the room’s attention in the way one only can when armed with complete faith in the words they’ve written. They glow as they pass over the crowd.
Songs like Shotgun and Feel It All The Time from the band’s new album Sometimes, Forever drive the life force of the band’s niche – hyper-sensitive lyrics softened with a shoegaze pedal – until they run out of road. When performed on stage, the crowd are dragged full-pelt along with them.
Near the end of the set, the band exit to leave Sophie standing alone. She performs Still – a moving tribute to life in the face of death – to a crowd that have turned to warm marble. I am not surprised when I see tears glittering under the limelight on the faces around me.
The stage feels like a party, the morning after the night before. We are left with one girl swaying alone, still afraid of a heartbreak that’s already happened. One only has to look in her eyes to see the deer in the headlights inside us all. Sophie’s hunted, but through Sometimes, Forever she becomes the predator to her own past. She sucks it dry to create an art form that’s all her own.
Her last song is arguably the band’s magnum opus, yellow is the colour of her eyes. For Sophie, a girl who seems reluctant to take the centrepiece spot in a band built around her, the love that emanates towards her thickens the air. It’s as if her eyes turn yellow, too.