Britain’s most exciting breakthrough band of recent years, Sports Team, have announced details of their second studio album Gulp!, due for release on Friday 22nd July 2022 via Island Records. The first taste of Gulp! came last night as Clara Amfo premiered the band’s new single ‘R Entertainment’ as her Hottest Record in the World on BBC Radio 1. Gulp! follows Sports Team’s 2020 Mercury Prize nominated debut album Deep Down Happy, which charted at #2 in the UK’s Official Charts, achieving the biggest vinyl sales for a debut British artist in 2020. Signposting a bold and ambitious new era for the band, Sports Team explain that ‘R Entertainment’ explores “The packaging down of all human experience into entertainment, prompted by the infinite scroll through social feeds and the manic formlessness of the images we are hit with every day. Graphic news interrupted by ads for season 17 of The Bodyguard, news as a rubbernecking, passively waiting for the next drop of horror as we flick through recipes.” Sports Team are Alex Rice (lead vocals), Rob Knaggs (rhythm guitar + vocals), Henry Young (lead guitar), Oli Dewdney (bass), Al Greenwood (drums) and Ben Mack (keyboard + percussion). Formed in 2016, the band released two EPs Winter Nets and Keep Walking! before sharing their debut album Deep Down Happy in June 2020 to widespread critical acclaim, praised by The Times for their “indomitable spirit and a refusal to take things too seriously” and The Guardian for their “sharply observational lyrics skewering the mores of suburbia”. Sports Team’s vivid vignettes of modern Britain and inspections of the follies, foibles and frustrations of youth have earned them an impassioned fanbase, a real community who come together at the band’s infamously electrifying live shows. Following a sold out headline date at Brixton Academy in November, Sports Team perform their first show of 2022 at BBC Radio 6 Music Festival in Cardiff this weekend.

One of the most exciting indie bands of the moment are following up their Mercury Prize-nominated debut Deep Down Happy with a new album this summer. We can’t wait for new hits and commentary on modern life from the very talented Sports Team.

FFO: Fontaines D.C., Mush, Shame, Parquet Courts.

By Martha