Hand-break off, Sports Team are back. With musical pedals to the metal and saxophones at full throttle, a river of halogen glows golden and an incisive critique of latter-day capitalism burns through the haze as the six-piece’s new single ‘I’m In Love (Subaru)’ glides into view.
A song not only born to float out of car stereos, but one to question the mass-produced, brand-obsessed cultures that create them.
Carpooling with the likes of Trust-era Elvis Costello, city-pop icon Mariya Takeuchi and Bryan Ferry shimmering with all his Roxy Music sophistication, ‘I’m In Love (Subaru)’ merges thematic lanes with Prefab Sprout’s ‘Cars And Girls’, to deliver an updated exploration of cynical sting lurking behind the new car dream, though with a power steering assuredness Sports Team embrace the musical spirit of ‘the road’.
“The mood of the first verse and the chorus is quite sincere, a Hollywood-inspired, teenage love song,” explains guitarist and lyricist Rob Knaggs, “but by the time we get to the second verse, we’ve found the worm in the middle of that apple. All the symbols of teenage rebellion, the car itself, have all been co-opted into selling something that can’t actually be bought. It’s that classic, Freudian-drenched symbol of a middle-aged bloke in a sports car, wearing his racing gloves as he goes through a crisis. A real corporate, capitalised view of masculinity that is divorced from reality or what might genuinely be cool.”
