Sports Team

Tickets available here: Sports Team | Norwich Box Office | UEA Ticket Bookings

Sports Team’s third album ‘Boys These Days’ cements their place at the heart of a great English songwriterly tradition, while marking a huge leap forward in the band’s sonic trajectory. Taking influence from the eccentric English maximalism of Roxy Music, World Party, Prefab Sprout and XTC, it’s a bold record that fully realises the promise of the Mercury Prize nominated six-piece.

Having gone from London’s backroom pub scene to the 5000-capacity Brixton Academy in less than 12 months, Sports Team built a reputation as one of the country's best live acts. It’s no surprise that 20 months on from their last British show, Rice missed that chaotic communion with their fans. Throughout the album vocalist Alex Rice tilts at the windmills of modern living. From the adolescent dream-fulfilment of a shining red Subaru Impreza, to the greed of a nation of landlords; the album’s lyrical themes are a baggage carousel of the sins of 21st century life, washed clean in the blood of David Beckham.

From dog-whistle “proper binmen-ism,” to Chianti, remote fucking and Fred Again, it’s a love letter to a life blown apart by nothing-much-in-particular. The album deals with the vacant symbols of 21st life. “Where love is a tax-write off, and the moon is just a great big strip-mine in the sky,” Knaggs explains. It’s a soundtrack for “the age of obsolescence. The promise of a shiny new life, with the breakdown already built into it.” Despite its themes, the album never feels dour. Packing its punches with the effortlessly sticky melodies of guitarists Henry Young and Knaggs, Ben Mack’s bar-room piano, and the one-two punch of drummer and bassist Al Greenwood and Oli Dewdney, the hooks are relentless.

The band spent January 2024 in near total darkness in the home of Death Metal, Bergen, Norway, with producer Matthias Tellez (Girl in Red, CMAT,) emerging with their brightest record to date. It marks the beginning of a new era for the band who, after releasing their first two albums with Island Records, have signed with Distiller Records (they remain with Bright Antenna in the US). Sports Team are: Alex Rice (Vocals) Robert Knaggs (Lyrics, backing vocals, Rhythm Guitar) Henry Young (Lead Guitar, Lap Steel) Oli Dewdney (Bass) Al Greenwood (Drums) Ben Mack (Synth, Piano & Percussion)

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