Sports Is Everything

I wasn’t expecting All of Something, the new album from Ohio’s SPORTS, to floor me the way it has. It’s pretty obvious that I love 90s guitar rock, whether it be college-era esotericism, gangly instrumental playfulness, slacker ne’er-do-wells, or dirge-like spikes of gravel-spewed aggression. But I am finding that the past month I have been falling into a lighter-limbed sonic freefall, with the likes of The Spook School, Diet Cig, Summer Flake and now Sports being my go to bands to listen to as the days get ever shorter here in London. 

Despite the plain name with the connotations of machismo and parochial rabid savagery, Sports is much more earnest and heartfelt, but without the mawkish histrionics. The album is still very much a microcosm of love and other catastrophes on the cusp of leaving adolescence truly behind, but the songs have sonic bark and verbal bite, both playful and damaged, and is a surprise tour-de-force of indie guitar pop abandon. You have the boppy, giddy C86 of 'Saturday' and 'GDP', the maudlin bedroom strum of 'Clean Socks', the urgent earnestness of 'The Washing Machine.' 'Getting On In Spite Of You' is anthemic in the most honest and carefree of ways, and 'Reality TV' Red Bull-and-hormones punk, somehow both bare-bones and beefy in delivery, with hearts brazenly pinned to the sleeve. It's all about cruising in cars, hopping in beds, falling in and out of love wearing the carapace of nonchalance while the fires burn brightly beneath. 

But the true gem is 'Stunted', which kicks off their second (and rumoured final) album All Of Something, and it is absolutely killer. The quiet opening, the warm crackle and heft of the guitars as they open up, the drums becoming a clear driving force as the final rousing crescendo hits, and the vocals all join together with Carmen Perry as they finally echo out "We both got what we wanted." It's Juliana Hatfield meets Belly meets The Muffs, and it's both 90s nostalgia and all round great universal songwriting. Perry's voice has that Hatfield/Kristin Hersh twang that could either be 90s American guitar pop twee or country and western whimsy, but is commanding all the time. I am a massive fan of this song in particular, this album in general, and Sports as a whole. If they are drifting apart, let's hope that Perry and co find other ways to give their all to something that we can all enjoy. All of Something is out now through Father/Daughter Records - get it now!

Hits From The Box #98 - Antique Roadshow Blues

You know when it gets into this twilight zone period on Sunday afternoon evening when it suddenly dawns on you that you are back at work the next day and it fills you with dread? My girlfriend calls it the Antique Roadshow blues, because as a kid she would see that come on the TV and it was an instant reminder that the weekend was on the wane. I'm having that right now. Need to liven up the last few hours of freedom...

Diet Cig is a duo intent on dishing out indie bounce and young adult ephemera a la Speedy Ortiz. Their new EP Over Easy is a playful expulsion of overt emotions, whether it be the freedom of being in your first apartment ('Breathless'), the painful expositions of hipsters ('Scene Sick') or the anger at Ivy Leaguer arseholes ('Harvard'). It's all innocuous, bubbly, and as Alex Luciano puts it, it just makes you want to dance.

I spoke recently about San Francisco band Happy Diving. One member of that band, Samuelito Cruz, is also in Never Young, a four-piece that slam into Les Savy Fav territory in their new self-titled EP, imbued as it is with mood, menace and a heady degree of melody. 'Ur A Front' in particular holds up to the LSF comparison, while the rest of the EP keeps the noise evenly calibrated with icy precision. These guys are definitely ones to watch. Race out and grab this 12" now.

This one is super old - 9 months is kinda old, right? - I Im Eye My's 7 Transmissions though is pretty great. Out through Not Not Fun, the Philadelphia duo's release is a blast synth oddysey (emphasis on odd) - feeling both a narcotic drag through perpetual Blade Runner nights, and a narcoleptic heart murmur synthesised psychomania. It's an overblown, overpopulated overriding of the senses. There is such a heady mix of genres, styles, modes and moods that outside of 'Momentum' maintains the heat and cybernetic intensity - when they final track is titled 'She's On A Different Trip', I couldn't agree more.

I IM EYE MY - "Streetcat Bonfire" from stereogum on Vimeo.

I IM EYE MY - "New Millennium" Video from stereogum on Vimeo.

Toronto outfit Prom have a pot pourri of influence swirling about in their veins, having taken the National way of constructing propulsive emotive rock and combined it with shoegaze histrionics, heightened post-rock expulsions and elegiac malaise on their Dumb Summer EP. They rightfully describe their music as "bummer jams", so you know this isn't going to be a buoyant bucolic ride into the sun, despite the above band photo. My favourite track on here is 'Park Moods', even though that avoids Daniel Wilson's baleful baritone.

Heading to Australia now - Sydney in fact - and Claire & The Cops. The trio have just brought out Lounge Lovers on cassette, and the EP is a blase exercise in garage surf-scuzz. They manage to marry the laconic spazz of Dune Rats, the glam immediacy of King Tuff and the balls-to-the-wall noise of Straight Arrows. It's not just fun, but there is meat in the sound that really hooks. This is gooooood.

Back in Toronto to finish up with Terrorista. The duo have been putting out a series of colourful tapes since September, and Green Tape is the third in the collection. The band churn out doleful loud rock fare that has slowly refined over the course of these three tapes, right up to second song 'Sean Drums' that holds precariously onto a cracked melody that supersedes the scabrous sonics and ventures into emotive rock territory. To hear the evolution I have put all three releases below for your perusal.






Happy Sunday everyone!