SPORTS are five friends out of Kenyon College, Ohio, who make a raucous strain of pop-punk. Fresh from 2014’s Sunchokes, recorded when the group were a quartet, the band are back with their sophomore record, All of Something, with an extra member in tow. The album deals with the terrifying transitional period of your early/mid-twenties, when you leave the structure and security of education and enter the Real World. The theme is a pertinent one, especially in a world where a degree is no longer a ticket to bigger and better things, where graduation not only guarantees to change your life but threatens to halt it altogether. Judging by the raft of young artists pushing this theme (Free Cake For Every Creature’s Moving Songs is a great example), the heady mix of forced relocation, excessive debts and paralysing freedom will be a prominent subject of many an album in the coming years.
While All of Something isn’t out until October, the band have released two singles to whet your appetite, complete with videos featuring animations by the excellent Laurent Hrybyk. First up is Saturday, our introduction to the richer sound of the newly-formed quintet, a short, sharp track about dwelling on the future while trying to live in the moment.
The second is ‘The Washing Machine’, a track which fits snugly into the Father/Daughter roster next to Diet Cig. The song swaps out worries over an imagined future to doubts over an achieved one, the sinking feeling when you realise a previous dream and discover it might not be as special or rewarding as you might have imagined.
“Sometimes at night it looks like you’ve stopped breathing,
Maybe it’s just I am crushing you.
We’re driving each other crazy but I know that you’ve been changing
So I’m gonna sleep until my bed is unmade
Cuz everything feels a little bit less safe
But I think that it’s okay to feel all of something “
You can pre-order All of Something now via Father/Daughter Records, with a variety of vinyl designs to choose from.