If per chance you like to spend a quiet Monday evening in your local Camberwell public house, enjoying the succulent taste of a crisp pint of Export while the muted nuances of Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher arguing with each other on the tv in the corner the only thing gently disturbing you – you probably shouldn’t have walked in to the Nags Head last night.
If you didn’t, then to be honest you missed out on a treat – that is if finding hundreds of meddling reprobates objectively baying to a long-haired ruffian in a suit and a drummer with a bleeding crack in her head is your bag. Last night pretty much summed up what the last two years has been about for Sports Team – taking over every nook and cranny they find and leading their diehard faithful into complete rapture with their thriving and absorbing music.
Now, with their debut album ‘Deep Down Happy’ on it’s way, the all-embracing “Here’s The Thing” sets out their new chapter and their next mission statement – complete takeover.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the single they use to introduce their first record is the comprehensive, definitive track that it is. A rollercoaster of biting sardonicism, intelligent wordplay and playful coalition – the track baulks at modern day rhetoric and self-prescribed hope, while acknowledging their own vulnerability and attempts to stay afloat – “Hey ma’ I wrote a song now everything’s alright”.
What makes it even more pertinent is the back and forth vivaciousness of Rice and Knaggs – unruly, cheeky as shit and utterly precocious. The two of them running their mouths off back to back is a precious moment that will immediately become a marker of many highlights in their exciting future.