SPORTS TEAM — ‘BOYS THESE DAYS’

Writer’s Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

For those who don’t know Sports Team for their music, you may have heard the story of the band being robbed at gunpoint whilst on their US tour late last year. After a slight album delay and now 10 tracks later, we finally have ‘Boys These Days’, a mature development of style that’s dripping in charisma and saxophone. The album works to introduce the new age of Sports Team, a very different approach compared to their 2022 album “Gulp!”. The band’s unique style remains at the forefront, but this time in a more bluesy, rhythmically strong way.

The first track, ‘I’m In Love (Subaru)’, fades into smooth saxophone bliss, aided by a chorus of collected vocals chiming in with different iterations of the extended line, “subaru”. Lead vocalist Alex Rice sings of a romanticised ideal in, “Immaculate leather and chrome (subaru) / I’m the king of the road / And you’re wearing that shirt you stole”, imagining the very car featured on the album’s gorgeous painted cover.

Title track, ‘Boys These Days’ is a tongue in cheek take on boomer mentality and the outlook on Gen Z kids who now just have “vaping and porn” to keep them entertained. Clangy piano/keyboard enters the track alongside intertwining strings and harmonica shrills, which combine to make a swingy collaboration straight out of a barnyard jam session. They sing, “Boys these days / Look like girls, look like girls these days”, commanding urges of toxic masculinity and gender roles that sounds like it’s been ripped straight from a dodgy relative’s Facebook page.

Muffled but rich electric guitar pushes ‘Moving Together’ into a mixture of shakers, drums, trumpets, and various electronic additions, resulting in a relaxed togetherness. The track begins however with a distorted sample of what sounds like the Coronation Street theme, bringing back a sound inspired by the laid back sun of a small Portuguese town to the gritty British soil Sports Team hail from. A chorus of people sing along towards the song’s wavy conclusion, together creating a swaying harmony of summery collectiveness.

Alex Rice’s vocals are given a chance to really shine in the in-your-face track, ‘Condensation’. The drums and movie soundtrack-sounding strings highlight his skills perfectly in the immediately seducing chorus. Quips and irony are dotted amongst the lyrics of the verses, which start to become nonsensical as the song progresses: “You know it tastes like a door slammed shut / You know it sounds like a bleeding cut”. It completely captures the chaos of a Sports Team live show: doused in sweat, and as they call it, “shambolic”.

A deconstruction of perfection culture arrives with ‘Sensible’, where a foundation of consistent guitar and drumming basslines sit behind Rice’s Elvis-like runs, singing, “All the people talking metaphors and cliches like they’re better for”, which feels ironically self referential following directly after ‘Condensation’. The urgent message turns into pleas of desperation with borderline shouts of, “You’re all so sensibly numb” and repetitions of “sensible” rituals scattered throughout. The subjects of the sermon are listening to the same Fred again.. , drinking the same Chablis, and visiting the same trendy London pubs, whilst the world collapses around them (“The bed’s on fire and we go to sleep”).

‘Planned Obsolescence’ sees a switch in vocalist to band member Rob Knaggs, who leads the band into a deep dive of reflection. The title’s ‘obsolescence’ refers to being phased out or forgotten, but it’s also how the band describe a “delayed adolescence”. In an interview with Wonderland, they explained, “When you’re 23 everybody’s all fired up when you say your life is bowling about the country in a van playing shows. And then suddenly you’re 30. And then the intonation changes”. The sudden maturity of the band and how they choose to evolve with that feels similar to recent explorations by current reigning it-girl Charli xcx, who has expressed similar ideology with the seemingly endless continuation of brat summer. Both artists are curiously playing with staying in the moment for just too long, being okay with uncomfortability, and refusing to stay quiet. By no means am I saying the time of Sports Team is up, but on ‘Planned Obsolescence’, they have boldly embraced the expectation to quietly disappear after the success of their early career.

We are swiftly transported to the wild west with track 7, ‘Bang Bang Bang’. It’s like you can hear the tumbleweed in the distance as claps act as distant gunshots, and a steady tambourine keeps the ironic jolly ambience alive. The worldbuilding in the song may be brief, but the use of odd names and references throughout the lyrics are striking enough to draw you in for more, leaving you with an insatiable appetite for knowledge about the absurdity of lax American gun laws.

The passionately performed, ‘Head to Space’, brings distorted guitar riffs that work amongst toe-tapping fiddles. The track peaks as its vocals echo out, leaving a lift-off announcement where a build to the climax begins with “woo”s worked into the song’s makeup. ‘Head to Space’ becomes darker in its instrumentation as it explores the concept of escaping your problems; scratchy strings are implemented before an eventual collapse into the song’s chaotically upbeat ending.

Tinny drums, woozy sax, and floaty guitar mix together in the album’s penultimate track, ‘Bonnie’. The song is a daydream of sexy lyricism about one half of the iconic crime duo, with the singer proclaiming to their partner (in both love and crime): “Keep your sunnies on indoors / Cruise through all the flashing blue”. A climbing bass provides the track’s suspiciously cool energy, which feels utterly inspired by the freedom of American cinema. It has to be my personal favourite!

The closer and popular single, ‘Maybe When We’re 30’, is the culmination of Sports Team’s unique maturity that has been developed throughout the ‘Boys These Days’ album. It’s ultimately about being happy with an ordinary and mundane life, because you’re spending it with the person you love. The lyrics move through life: at 30 they’ll get a dog, at 70 they’ll go on cruises and read the Daily Telegraph, and at 80 they’ll lie out in the nude and take up smoking. ‘Maybe When We’re 30’ is a love song full of hope for the future, and holds a realisation that the boring bits of life we all try to avoid are sometimes the most beautiful.