Let’s take inventory for second. Think about all the little interactions and stories and advertisements and more that hit you as you take a 30 second scroll through your phone. As Sports Team’s guitarist and lyricist Robert Knaggs puts it, “You wake up in the morning, and by the time you have your breakfast, you’ve scrolled through 8,000 different narratives that have no cohesive thread.” Just disjointed, disillusioned, and uninspiring walks through digital hellscapes.
So what, then, do you get if you take UK’s fastest rising indie rock band and place them in the frosted landscapes of Norway where they meditate on living in this modern age described above? The answer is Sports Team upcoming third LP Boys These Days.
From the start, you can tell there is a bit of a progression from the indie rock sound this UK outfit has established over the past 9 years. I wouldn’t call it a departure, by any means, but Sports Team do trade in some of the guitar-driven hits for a more synth and sax, ’80s pop landscape in a handful of these tracks. The latter is immediately apparent on Boys These Days opener “I’m In Love (Subaru).” A song that you think may be a love song but actually explores humanity’s complex relationships with glossy, inanimate objects (like..a Subaru, for instance). It’s a perfect introduction to the thematic of this LP – thoughtful lyrics, with sarcastic undertones at times, against a more complex, layered sound. At passive listens, Boys These Days can be an enjoyable indie album with a blend of influence but when you peel it back a bit, it’s an art exhibit making commentary on our disconnected lives in an overstimulated era.
Sonically, I will say it is much more than just indie rock with an 80’s pop tint. I actually hear a lot of Elvis Costello on this album, specifically in “Moving Together” and “Condensation” – two songs with incredible grooves and vocals delivered with apathetic or numb energy (which I perceive as a deliberate choice). Another outlier from the 80’s pop and rock inspiration would be the Western-hued, floor-stomper “Bang Bang Bang” – a punchy commentary on the United States’ obsession with guns. This song is particularly poignant given Sports Team’s recent run-in with gun violence in the States.
Ultimately, the core of Boys These Days is wrapped up and delivered quite beautifully on album closer, and my personal favorite, “Maybe When We’re 30.” The most subtle and gentle song on the record is met with lyrics that question the traditional views on what it means to be a successful adult – to find a heartless job, battle with HOA’s, waste hours on Facebook, and only see a concert once a year (a sin I personally will never stand for).
Boys These Days questions everything – and does so in a way that is both serious and sarcastic all at once. The band has quoted British Pop Art of the ’60s as an inspiration and I think they really captured that energy with this LP.
The full album will be out everyone on May 23rd. Listen to “Maybe When We’re 30” here:
The Indy Review 
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