Sports Team have released new single “Condensation” – the second track to be revealed from the Mercury-nominated six-piece’s hotly anticipated third album “Boys These Days”, which is set for release on February 28th via Distiller Records and Bright Antenna.
The new single follows comeback single “I’m In Love (Subaru)”, and released alongside an official video which was written and directed by Rob Knaggs and Ben Mack of Sports Team. “It’s a song about sweat. We had two years away from playing live and wanted to capture the physicality of being in a packed room with people you love. At a gig or anywhere else,” Rob explains.
The band – who this magazine has tipped since 2020’s “Going Soft” single – marked their return in July with the release of “I’m In Love (Subaru)”, nodding to the likes of Prefab Sprout, Trust-era Elvis Costello, city-pop icon Mariya Takeuchi and Bryan Ferry.
Forthcoming new album “Boys These Days” boasts “some of Sports Team’s most dynamic musical performances to date”, and features hand-painted artwork by Rob Knaggs.
While its predecessors, “Deep Down Happy” (# 2 in 2020) and “Gulp!” (# 3 in 2022), were recorded between bouts of intensive touring, the record not only follows the London-based band’s longest absence from a stage, and a switch of label (they signed to London-based Distiller at the end of 2023, who now represent them globally alongside Bright Antenna, the band’s longstanding US label partner), but it was created via a series of near hermetically sealed sessions in Bergen, Norway with producer Matthias Tellez (Girl in Red, CMAT).
Following an exhilarating show at London’s Omeara which sold out in less than three minutes, Sports Team will embark on a 10-date nationwide UK tour this autumn, kicking off in Manchester on November 14th and culminating in a show at London’s O2 Forum on November 24th.
Tour dates are:
14th November – Manchester, New Century
15th November – Birmingham, The Castle & Falcon
16th November – Liverpool, Arts Club
18th November – Sheffield, Foundry
19th November – Glasgow, SWG3
20th November – Newcastle Upon Tyne, Boiler Shop
22nd November – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms
23rd November – Leeds, The Wardrobe
24th November – Bristol, The Trinity Centre
25th November – London, O2 Forum Kentish Town
Band photo [top of page] by Bartek Szmigulski
