Sports Team Tour and Music News

Sports Team have been on social media to fire the starting gun on their second album.

Sports Team, Laura Marling and Porridge Radio were some of the Mercury Prize nominees performing on the BBC last night ahead of the winner being announced later today.

Stations Of The Cross is the latest example of Sports Team‘s earworm packed LP Deep Down Happy.

‘We always knew we’d play this in an empty stadium’, Sports Team have said after uploading their recent live performance of Camel Crew to YouTube.

Sports Team have announced some UK and Ireland tour dates for April next year when they hope to finally get out and celebrate the release of their debut album Deep Down Happy.

Sports Team narrowly missed out on number one but still claimed the highest new entry on the latest UK Album Chart with their debut Deep Down Happy.

Sports Team have uploaded a video for Camel Crew, filmed at home, after releasing their debut album Deep Down Happy last Friday.

Our editor’s pick of the albums reviewed on these pages during the past seven days is Deep Down Happy, the debut album from Sports Team – revisit the review and check out the album via Spotify:

Sports Team have been, up to this point, defined by their live sets, crammed as they are with wilful freneticism.

Whilst the songs themselves are not exactly disenfranchised youth anthems, they’ve given a voice to a jaded and confused (and salivating) generation. Their gigs have been testament to this, Alex Rice flouncing joyfully around the stage like the lovechild of Jagger and Morrissey.

Meanwhile, along the way they’ve released a string of relentlessly upbeat, catchy singles, all of which have reflected their modus operandi in some way or another. As such, this debut album is both successful before it’s even released, and sometimes suffers from over-familiarity (despite the mystifying omission of M5).

The paradox is very apparent; chirpy, guitar-led pop that takes its lead from the art and Brit genres is a formula that rarely fails. The music doesn’t break any new ground, yet is driven by an enthusiasm that only youth can provide. Here It Comes Again features Coxon-esque guitar work beneath the snappy, ever-so-slightly distorted vocals, while Going Soft leans heavily on a lick that echoes The Jam’s English Rose. Meanwhile, on Feels Like Fun they go full on Strokes, the crunching guitar lending itself well to the rolling bass, only some quiet mellotron adding sprinkling to the indie noise. The band’s uniformity of spirit is best reflected on opening track Lander as the sextet fly out of the traps as one, while on Camel Crew they go full glam rock.

Sports Team have posted a video for Going Soft to help with the prolonged wait for their debut album.