Sports in this case refers to a band from Gambier, Ohio, a small town located very
near where i grew up in Lexington, Ohio. I'm practically neighbors with them... Except
that they are a lot younger and, despite our geographic nearness, they still better stay offa
my lawn (Brendan's Note: PostLibyan actually lives in a condo in Georgia now. Senility
must be setting in...)
Now, these neighbor kids who are not on my lawn have a pretty fun band. Sports are
led by Carmen Perry, who sings in quirky manner that i associate with folk rock. That is
to say, Ms. Perry emphasizes odd syllables here and there in her singing, going up and
down her register to accentuate the rhythm of the words. The band backs her up with
catchy, jangly pop rock.
The record starts with light guitar strumming and Perry singing along in
Stunted. As the song grows it gets gloriously messy with the whole band going at
it, singing along with her. Saturday kind of jangles along messily, Perry really
wailing with her voice quirky and all over the place. It's a short fun tune.
Getting On in Spite of You starts with a rolling drum riff courtesy of Benji
Dossetter who apparently channels Five-Eight just this once. This is toe-tappingly
catchy, as is Reality TV which bounces along nicely.
A male voice takes the lead on Town, a short song that jangles furiously, but
it is back to Perry on Harder, a song that kind of grinds along in a slow, epic way.
It is a really catchy tune and on the verses Perry reminds me of Michelle Shocked, while
on the chorus she wails away. Really nice.
Perry pushes the upper limit of her voice on Get Bummed Out, the song
jangling nicely around her with a steady rhythm and one of the guitar picking away. Very
fun, as is GDP, a similar track that is next.
Sports mix it up with Clean Socks, a slow song that never really takes off the
way the rest of their tracks do. Not to say that it is weak, but at this point in the record i
expected them to really kick it into high gear during the choruses and when they don't do
that, it kind of throws me off. Then again, there is a nice slide guitar part towards the
end.
The final track on the album is called The Washing Machine. Huh. Two
songs in a row that are basically about doing laundry. How odd? This is a blistering tune,
just tearing along at a fast pace at she complain about "shrinking all my dresses again". A
fun close to the record.
So these neighbor kids do a good job. This is a fun, happy little record.
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