The indie rockers get suave without losing any playfulness or perception

With their first two albums, Sports Team captured the frantic, visceral thrills of their live show but they instil a sense of suave order to third effort Boys These Days. This is a record where the indie rockers—who formed in Cambridge in 2016 with a specialism in wry, anthemic observations of Middle Britain—get their groove on by channelling the dapper ’80s stylings of Bryan Ferry and Prefab Sprout.

Seeking to make a more intricately crafted studio album without it being anything as dull as that sounds, the six-piece headed to Bergen, Norway to work with girl in red and CMAT producer Matias Tellez. The result is a record that melds the playful thrills and melodious joy of 2020’s Deep Down Happy and 2022 follow-up Gulp! with a sumptuous, soulful sound that takes in exuberant, sax-assisted indie pop (slick opener “I’m in Love (Subaru)”), Pulp-esque wistfulness (“Maybe When We’re 30”), rollicking fusions of Britpop and Morricone (“Bang Bang Bang”) and freewheeling, melody-heavy sing-alongs (“Condensation”). At their best, they sound like the Only Fools and Horses theme tune as played by early-’80s Elton John.

As with their earlier output, though, there is razor-sharp perception lurking within all the cheeky winks to camera, and themes such as the uncertain shift from teenager to adulthood, the weaponisation of nostalgia, doom-scrolling, war and influencers with dogs all crop up over the course of these 10 tracks. In Boys These Days, Sports Team have made a grown-up pop record without losing the sense of what made them so exciting in the first place.