The sign of maturity, someone at some party years ago joked, is when angst ferments into ennui. With their latest album, The Refrigerator, Remember Sports graduate from the youthful restlessness displayed on earlier sets, including 2014’s Sunchokes and 2015’s more pop-oriented All of Something. Teenage trials have been endured, initiations processed. Adulthood hovers like an implacable Sphinx. As Remember Sports’ primary songwriter and singer, Carmen Perry has ripened a bit, stumbling into that thorny bardo between adolescence and middle age.
“Cut Fruit” is grungy, discordant, sounding like a psychedelic bayou party gone wrong. “I think my brain is broken”, Perry sings, mixing genuine consternation and 12-Step/recovery humor. “Across the Line” is a familiar country and grunge cocktail, Perry sounding like a cross between Soccer Mommy and Jay Farrar circa Trace.
The concise “Bug”, meanwhile, employs soft-loud dynamics to good effect. The depiction of tumultuous/dysfunctional romance is rendered fresh, even novel, as Perry vacillates between matter-of-factness and throttled despair. Add a dynamic instrumental mix that veers between waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop lulls and cacophonic eruptions.
On his last solo album, 2024’s Manning Fireworks, MJ Lenderman dived into his appreciation for Son Volt and Whiskeytown, among others, egregiously reconfiguring 90s proto-alt-country for the current crowd. Remember Sports, on the other hand, strive to infuse whatever influences they have – and they certainly have them – with an au courant attitude, a flaring guitar here, a mem-ish lyric there. In this way, they distance themselves from their sources, or at least flesh out and expand their sound in such a way that their sources are more varied and less obvious.
On “Fridge”, Perry reminds one of a throatier, slightly hung-over Elizabeth Stokes of The Beths, as she questions how to break patterns and escape her own version of the matrix. “Selfish” is sneery but catchy a la Katie and Allison Crutchfield’s Snocaps or Lush-era Snail Mail. In both cases, however, the pieces incorporate a signature cadence and distinct lyrical flourishes, thus effectively individuating. “Why can’t I get this?” Perry laments, acknowledging the way we repeat our mistakes even when we’re pretty clear, each time, about the lessons we’re supposed to be learning.
The band use noise effectively, particularly when they contrast it with a hooky melody. “Yowie” includes heavy guitar strums that nudge the band in a punk direction. “I don’t need a mirror / I see myself through your eyes”, Perry shares, conjuring that experience when someone’s shock re: your meltdown or fuck-up bypasses your denial and fuck-you filters, their pain (and the fact that you caused it) registering (at least temporarily).
On “Zucchini”, Perry forges a satirical vision of two bored people navigating a boring relationship. On “Soothe/Seethe”, she looks forward to this and/or that, but of course, life plays out the way it plays out; i.e., our preferences don’t seem to matter. “Nevermind” is a wiry/jangly number, Perry reaching for equanimity as the band pick, strum, and hammer their instruments. “I’m not sure what I’m afraid of / Maybe love is a selfish game”, Perry concludes, wrestling with an issue she’ll probably ponder for the rest of her life.
With their latest album, Remember Sports successfully straddle various genres and subgenres. The brighter production MO works well as a contrast to the melancholy-slacker themes. Overall, the project is notably cohesive, wearing its influences like a onesie undergarment rather than on its sleeve. The mood is one of obligatory transition, what might be dubbed hopeful dejection. The future could be a repeat of the past and present or it could open up into something entirely new. Most likely: both.
