Tracklisting:

1) Evening Loving – Jenny Gillespie
2) Luxury – Patio
3) Low – Yours Are The Only Ears
4) Either Way – Sorority Noise
5) Home at Last – The Sports
6) Braver – Sally Fowler
7) Chow Chow – FAYE
8) Meant – Spartan Jet-Plex
9) Stained Glass Eye – The Dead Tongues
10) October – These Bashful Claws
11) Bad Vibrations – Naps
12) Baked Goods – Young Jesus
13) Heroine – BB Cream
14) Winona Death Ryder – Boy Problems (No Dice Tapes comp)
15) The Only Other Girl From Back Home – Advance Base
16) When it Feels – Soft Spell (STAY RAD SAV comp)
17) The Unnatural – Claire Cronin
18) Same Old Ocean – Crabapple
19) Diet Coke – Lake Michigan
20) Ferris Beuller – Flatsound
21) See Good – Jobless
22) Anything but Yourself – Tom Greenwood
23) Under the Mountain II – Mermaidens
24) Liars – Gregory Alan Isakov
25) Warning Sign – Mikko Joensuu
26) Candy – Fish Food
27) White Gold – Good Good Blood
28) We Bury Our Dead Alive – Coping Skills
29) Joke/Rope – Haybaby
30) Slacker – Will B & the Teen Creeps
31) Double Bacon Cheeseburger – Yikes
32) All I Have – Derek Ted
33) Try Hard – Hovvdy
34) Dark & Gloomy – Horse Teeth
35) Migratory Birds – Western Skies Motel
36) Endless Wave – Hanging Valleys

The post May 2016 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“We’re not the sports in the athletics sense, but in the sense of a person who puts up with the struggles of life. This isn’t cheerleading in the athletics sense, but in the sense of supporting someone through the sad times and the struggles. Hence the artwork. We hope listeners can appreciate our music as not just singing sad songs for the sake of being sad, but singing sad songs so we can feel better.”

The gentle acoustic opening of ‘My Life Is Like a Merchant Ships Song’ segues into urgent indie pop, complete with perky percussion and handclaps. But the lyrics tell another story, one that belies the sunny nature of the music.

“But god damn I’m scared that I will lose my only friend
I know I’m wrong, I know you’re right
‘Just give it time, stay here tonight'”

Follow-up ‘Rebecca’ feels bright and sunny, with strains of Paul Simon’s Graceland, the perfect song for a understatedly happy summer morning. ‘Dreams’ is softer and sadder, an acoustic track made heavy by reverby background guitar and an atmosphere of sorrow, while  ‘Home At Last’ has a see-sawing motion, with bursts of instrumentation interspersed between quieter periods, the floating violin adding a further melancholic edge and inching things closer to the luscious orchestral pop of Fanfarlo’s early efforts. The lyrics, detailing thoughts on loneliness, are delivered with increasing desperation as the percussion gets big and brassy.

Closer ‘Thank You, Mr Yuker’ has a twitchy, mathy element, but overall the song has a wistful air, mainly due to Carr’s vocals and the background violin. The final section builds into a climax, the vocals little more than cries as the music crashes and sears, the second example that The Sports can write a killer build up that culminates in catharsis.

You can get Cheerleading now via The Sports Bandcamp page.

Photo credit Sierra Mollenkopf

The post The Sports – Cheerleading appeared first on Various Small Flames.