ALBUM REVIEWS
When they burst onto the UK scene with their ‘Winter Nets’ (2018) and ‘Keep Walking!’ (2019) EPs – and stayed there – Sports Team proved that you can still bulldoze your way towards indie cult hero status. Penning unserious songs about motorways (‘M5’) and the everyday myths of 21st-century life (‘Here’s The Thing’), the band were almost an antithesis to the serious post-punk sprouting all over the UK, providing the escapism that young people so desperately craved.
While naysayers couldn’t see past six middle-class individuals writing under the guise of self-deprecation, the London-based six-piece earned a Mercury Prize nomination for their 2020 debut ‘Deep Down Happy’ just five years after forming in Cambridge.
When UK festivals returned after the pandemic, it felt like Sports Team had forced their way onto every line-up. Completely sold by the band’s affability, their dedicated young fanbase were treated to second LP ‘Gulp!’ in 2022, which picked up the indie-punk baton directly from the debut. Three years later, some unusually sizeable downtime and a stint in the Norwegian coastal city of Bergen have paved the way for its successor.
‘Boys These Days’ arrives after one of the band’s most transformational periods to date. They’ve changed record labels and grappled with approaching the end of their twenties, and – perhaps reflective of those evolutions – their third album also suitably shifts their sound. They could have pinched ‘I’m In Love (Subaru)’ from the ’60s, using the saxophone to ponder how old desires to be “the king of the road” shift with age. Harmonica and cello find their way into ‘Sensible’, giving an exotic justification to the track’s cheeky digs at how the world’s gone dull: “Take me to Dalston / We’ll play Fred Again.. and dance.”
Absurdity has always been Sports Team’s killer weapon. While it returns in its natural form via the escapist, country-tinged ‘Head To Space’, it metamorphoses into a powerful socio-political tool at times on ‘Boys These Days’ – something the band haven’t fully explored before.
‘These Days’ pokes fun at toxic masculine tropes (“Good God, boys these days / Look like girls”) by turning it into the indie-rock community’s new chant. ‘Bang Bang Bang’ combats the scarily casual attitudes to gun culture in the USA by taking the mickey (“He don’t get hard unless he takes a gun to bed”). When the band were robbed at gunpoint in San Francisco last December – after the song was written, incredibly – the shrug of shoulders from those around them only proved their point.
On ‘Boys These Days’, Sports Team flip the narrative of an increasingly stark, divided world to embrace the childlike side of human nature, staying true to that foundational principle of the band. Sonically, it’s a step up from the guitar-driven mayhem that characterised their roots, without just slapping some synths on top like many of their indie counterparts. In reality, they’ve never sounded closer to that wacky, eccentric live band down your local on a Friday night – and maybe that’s where their truest form lies.
ALBUM REVIEWS
Grandeur sits at the heart of ‘This Music May Contain Hope’, RAYE’s second album, and the result feels nothing short of breathtaking. On this record, the singer born Rachel Keen explores a wide spectrum of sounds across its 73 minute length, moving from emotional ballads to lively funk moments and the jazz pop style she has become closely associated with. It can feel overwhelming at first, yet the magic that comes from RAYE fully committing to her vision makes the experience rewarding from start to finish.
‘This Music May Contain Hope’, a conceptual project about pushing through insecurity and heartbreak, unfolds like a lavish stage production. RAYE takes on the dual role of main character and guiding voice throughout the story. “Allow me to set the scene. Our story begins at 2:27am on a rainy night in Paris. Cue the thunder,” she says during the opening track ‘Girl Under The Grey Cloud’, which arrives with sweeping orchestral strings. Spoken passages appear across the album, helping shape the narrative and giving the project a sense of direction, almost like hearing the official recording of a Broadway show.
With this framework in place, the South London artist allows herself to fully explore the album’s diverse musical palette, and most of the time it works in her favor. Sometimes she fully embraces the theatrical side of the concept, especially during the closing section of the smooth R&B track ‘The WhatsApp Shakespeare’. Other moments are delivered more straightforwardly, such as the emotional slow building ballad ‘I Know You’re Hurting’. She also revisits her earlier dance influences with the impressive house track ‘Life Boat’.
Across the entire album, two things stand out clearly. RAYE’s flexible vocals sound better than ever, and her songwriting feels sharper than it has before. Take the playful highlight ‘I Hate The Way I Look Today’, a swing jazz inspired track reminiscent of Ella Fitzgerald, where she admits “I’m okay to be lonely / If I’m lonely and skinny / I have such silly self-loathing thoughts, it seems”. Then there is the emotional storytelling in ‘Nightingale Lane’: “It was right there, early June / Next to Old Park Avenue / Standing in the rain, I watched him walk away”.
Despite all the vulnerability and emotional struggles explored throughout the record, RAYE ultimately reaches a place of optimism, staying true to the album’s title. She gathers her close friends on ‘Click Clack Symphony’ with support from Hans Zimmer, finds closure with guidance from Al Green on the smooth seventies soul inspired ‘Goodbye Henry’, and reaches toward something greater alongside her sisters Amma and Absolutely on the uplifting ‘Joy’ as she searches to be “free of all the pain and every fear”. After the stormy opening imagery of that “rainy night” and “thunder”, RAYE eventually realizes that “the sun exists behind the clouds”, as she shares on ‘Happier Times Ahead’.
‘This Music May Contain Hope’ shows RAYE performing at her absolute peak. The album feels huge in scale and emotionally powerful, yet it remains rooted in honest experiences and real feelings. Yes, it asks a lot from the listener, but that is also what makes it so special. Every dramatic moment and musical shift feels like RAYE claiming her independence and finally creating music entirely on her own terms.
