Sports Team - GULP!

Cambridge-formed Sports Team have been brilliant at doing two things since they first emerged around 2018. One: weaving smarmy social commentary into a collection of incessantly hooky Britpop tracks. Two: drumming up their own hype like they’d keel over and die without it. These skills combined handily when it came to ramming their 2020 debut ‘Deep Down Happy’ up the album charts in a bundle-flogging battle against Lady Gaga’s ‘Chromatica’ that ultimately earned them second place, but still felt like a victory for these six scrappy underdogs. The issue Sports Team have with album two, then, is that a big chunk of their charm from their early days has evaporated: Twitter banter plus the tunes to back them up earned them a shot at the big leagues; with the aptly titled ‘GULP!’ their own buzz is their biggest hurdle.