Label: Big Scary Monsters
Released: 23rd April 2021
Gambier, Ohio native four-piece Remember Sports are back with their fourth album release, ‘Like A Stone’. Heaving with adolescent defiance and unpredictable vocals that are equal parts melodic and chaotic, this record tows a fine line between poppy, chart-ready-alt-rock and grungy indie music.
Besides the boisterous zeal found in the band’s instruments, the first thing you’ll notice on ‘Like A Stone’ is the fascinating vocal breaks of lead singer and songwriter, Carmen Perry who cultivates unexpected twists in practically every melody on the album. Picture a pop-punk Dido. It’s a bizarre enough thought to hook you from the off. Pair that up with the distorted strings of Catherine Dwyer and Jack Washburn, along with the thrashing percussion of Connor Perry, you get aggressive energy infused with genuine passion.
Remember Sports are humming with self-confidence, somehow singing lyrics like “I finally cried about it last night / my heart feeling like a stone” and nonetheless still coming across as badasses. The secret is blasting out your most tender thoughts to hectic indie-rock rhythms. Even when Perry sings “My eggs flow right out of me like clockwork every month,” we don’t bat an eyelid because it’s shortly followed by a gnarly guitar riff that makes everything fit just right. Confidence is key.
‘Like A Stone’ doesn’t reinvent the alt-rock wheel, but it effortlessly adds a few banging spokes to it in a very charming way. What’s more, it doesn’t rely on gimmicky producing or other distractions to get our attention. Instead, we get Remember Sports exactly how we want them, unfiltered and unadulterated.
