Dork
  • Music News
    • Latest News
    • Album Release Schedule
  • Features
    • Features & Interviews
    • Artist Guides
    • In Photos
  • New Music
    • Hype
    • Hype News
    • Hype Features & Interviews
    • Hype Reviews
  • Reviews
    • Album & EP Reviews
    • Live Reviews
  • Playlists
    • The Cut
    • Bangers
    • Hype
  • Radio
    • Home
    • Shows
      • Down With Boring
      • Mez’s Sunday Lunch
    • Playlist
    • Listen Again
    • Podcast
      • Apple Podcasts
      • Spotify
      • Google Podcasts
      • Stitcher
      • aCast
      • TuneIn
  • Magazine
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Print Subscriptions
    • Print + Digital Subscriptions
  • Supporters
    • Support Dork
    • Supporter Only Content
    • Digital Library
  • Dork Live
HTML5 RADIO PLAYER PLUGIN WITH REAL VISUALIZER powered by Sodah Webdesign Dexheim
Dork
  • Music News
    • Latest News
    • Album Release Schedule
  • Features
    • Features & Interviews
    • Artist Guides
    • In Photos
  • New Music
    • Hype
    • Hype News
    • Hype Features & Interviews
    • Hype Reviews
  • Reviews
    • Album & EP Reviews
    • Live Reviews
  • Playlists
    • The Cut
    • Bangers
    • Hype
  • Radio
    • Home
    • Shows
      • Down With Boring
      • Mez’s Sunday Lunch
    • Playlist
    • Listen Again
    • Podcast
      • Apple Podcasts
      • Spotify
      • Google Podcasts
      • Stitcher
      • aCast
      • TuneIn
  • Magazine
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Print Subscriptions
    • Print + Digital Subscriptions
  • Supporters
    • Support Dork
    • Supporter Only Content
    • Digital Library
  • Dork Live
  • Album & EP Reviews

Sports Team – Deep Down Happy

  • Dork
  • June 5, 2020
Label: Island
Released: 5th June 2020
Rating: ★★★★★

Sports Team are the greatest band in their own universe. A big statement for an us-against-the-world gang who specialise in them, it’s also more nuanced than it reads at a glance. In a scene where too many can appear bland and tasteless, Sports Team have long felt like a liberal pinch of firecracker seasoning – all swagger and gob, full of self-belief and no fear of ruffling feathers along the way. To some more beige souls, it may seem tiresome. To the rest, it’s a lightning rod that channels something electrifying – genuine, unabashed excitement.

Because that’s what Sports Team command in their disciples. The antithesis of growing old and boring, there’s no doubt their highly-stylised, coach party indie-pop will leave those concerned with high art and even higher purpose thumbing their nose – but those voices don’t matter. Not here, where they’re pitted against a critical mass of youthful exuberance, happy to throw down with a band shot with adrenaline and ready for a good time.

‘Deep Down Happy’ is – first and foremost – an album soaked in teen spirit. That heady belief that everything is shiny and new, discovered for the first time, better than whatever came before. It’s nostalgia never lived, romanticised into a uniquely British world of bad roasts and bores down the local pub. It’s a hall of fame of indie icons past, cut up and sewn back together to make its own reanimated Frankenstein’s nonsense – a sassy, eye-rolling triple threat ready to cut through a sea of poseurs and has-beens. If you’re willing to buy into the complete package, it’s nothing short of glorious.

From the no-mucking-about-here-then explosion of ‘Lander’, Alex Rice drawls and muses over a crescendo that grabs hold and shakes for dear life. Skipping from character to character, often sarcastic, never entirely straight down the line, he’s part Jarvis Cocker, part 00s art-pop-provocateur Eddie Argos. But while Rice may find the limelight drawn his way, it’s the collective that provides the platform upon which he struts. While lyrically Sports Team may live in a world of perfect one-liners and faded vignettes, musically they’re a well-oiled machine. The swell of ‘Camel Crew’ or the woozy heat haze of ‘Long Hot Summer’ – where songwriter Rob Knaggs takes vocal duties – show a band with far more depth than the bombast alone might initially suggest.

It’s when the brakes come off that Sports Team really excel. At first listen, ‘Here’s The Thing’ may sound like a joke – like a Reliant Robin driving down cobbled steps, it’s a song hanging on to believability by the skin of its teeth. And yet, once that initial ‘what the fuck’ subsides, it’s also riotously great fun. An earworm to end all others, imagine being dull enough to try to suppress that involuntary grin. Life’s far too short.

With no shortage of confidence, Sports Team are the complete package. A band beyond just their music alone, there are no half measures here. When the battle lines are drawn, you’ll either be with them or against them. We know what side we’re on. You wouldn’t want to look boring, would you?

Stephen Ackroyd

You May Also Like
View Post
  • Music News

The 1975 are stepping in as last-minute headliners for Reading & Leeds 2022

  • August 12, 2022
View Post
  • Music News

Yungblud is the next cover act for the new issue of Dork

  • August 8, 2022
View Post
  • Music News

Rage Against The Machine cancel UK & European shows, leaving Reading & Leeds a headliner short

  • August 12, 2022
Latest issue
Latest
    • Features
    Been Stellar: “Some people do noisy well, and some do pop well – it’s a delicate balance trying to merge the two”
    • Live Reviews
    Dork’s Day Out brews up a summer sweetener at London’s Signature Brew
    • Music News
    Braids claim they’ve “returned to our roots” with a new single, ‘Retriever’
    • Music News
    Ellie Bleach has shared a new single, ‘Tupperware Party’
    • Music News
    The Killers have shared the video for their latest single, ‘Boy’ – watch

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get pop nonsense to your inbox.

Dork
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Privacy
© 2016-2021 The Bunker Publishing Ltd

Input your search keywords and press Enter.

Cookies

To make this site work properly, we sometimes place small data files called cookies on your device.
Accept
Change Settings
Cookie Box Settings
Cookie Box Settings

Privacy settings

Decide which cookies you want to allow. You can change these settings at any time. However, this can result in some functions no longer being available. For information on deleting the cookies, please consult your browser’s help function. Learn more about the cookies we use.

With the slider, you can enable or disable different types of cookies:

  • Block all
  • Essential
  • Functionality
  • Analytics
  • Advertising

This website will:

  • Essential: Remember your cookie permission setting
  • Essential: Allow session cookies
  • Essential: Gather information you input into a contact forms, newsletter and other forms across all pages
  • Essential: Keep track of what you input in a shopping cart
  • Essential: Authenticate that you are logged into your user account
  • Essential: Remember language version you selected

This website won't:

  • Remember your login details
  • Functionality: Remember social media settings
  • Functionality: Remember selected region and country
  • Analytics: Keep track of your visited pages and interaction taken
  • Analytics: Keep track about your location and region based on your IP number
  • Analytics: Keep track of the time spent on each page
  • Analytics: Increase the data quality of the statistics functions
  • Advertising: Tailor information and advertising to your interests based on e.g. the content you have visited before. (Currently we do not use targeting or targeting cookies.
  • Advertising: Gather personally identifiable information such as name and location

This website will:

  • Essential: Remember your cookie permission setting
  • Essential: Allow session cookies
  • Essential: Gather information you input into a contact forms, newsletter and other forms across all pages
  • Essential: Keep track of what you input in a shopping cart
  • Essential: Authenticate that you are logged into your user account
  • Essential: Remember language version you selected
  • Functionality: Remember social media settings
  • Functionality: Remember selected region and country

This website won't:

  • Remember your login details
  • Analytics: Keep track of your visited pages and interaction taken
  • Analytics: Keep track about your location and region based on your IP number
  • Analytics: Keep track of the time spent on each page
  • Analytics: Increase the data quality of the statistics functions
  • Advertising: Tailor information and advertising to your interests based on e.g. the content you have visited before. (Currently we do not use targeting or targeting cookies.
  • Advertising: Gather personally identifiable information such as name and location

This website will:

  • Essential: Remember your cookie permission setting
  • Essential: Allow session cookies
  • Essential: Gather information you input into a contact forms, newsletter and other forms across all pages
  • Essential: Keep track of what you input in a shopping cart
  • Essential: Authenticate that you are logged into your user account
  • Essential: Remember language version you selected
  • Functionality: Remember social media settingsl Functionality: Remember selected region and country
  • Analytics: Keep track of your visited pages and interaction taken
  • Analytics: Keep track about your location and region based on your IP number
  • Analytics: Keep track of the time spent on each page
  • Analytics: Increase the data quality of the statistics functions

This website won't:

  • Remember your login details
  • Advertising: Use information for tailored advertising with third parties
  • Advertising: Allow you to connect to social sites
  • Advertising: Identify device you are using
  • Advertising: Gather personally identifiable information such as name and location

This website will:

  • Essential: Remember your cookie permission setting
  • Essential: Allow session cookies
  • Essential: Gather information you input into a contact forms, newsletter and other forms across all pages
  • Essential: Keep track of what you input in a shopping cart
  • Essential: Authenticate that you are logged into your user account
  • Essential: Remember language version you selected
  • Functionality: Remember social media settingsl Functionality: Remember selected region and country
  • Analytics: Keep track of your visited pages and interaction taken
  • Analytics: Keep track about your location and region based on your IP number
  • Analytics: Keep track of the time spent on each page
  • Analytics: Increase the data quality of the statistics functions
  • Advertising: Use information for tailored advertising with third parties
  • Advertising: Allow you to connect to social sitesl Advertising: Identify device you are using
  • Advertising: Gather personally identifiable information such as name and location

This website won't:

  • Remember your login details
Save & Close