After four albums of expertly crafted pop punk, Remember Sports follows up last year’s epic Like a Stone with Leap Day, the first EP of their decade-long run.
From vocalist/guitarist Carmen Perry: “This is the first time we were able to work on music together since the pandemic, so I hope everyone can feel the joy and love that went into making this. We filmed the video at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, which is one of my favorite spots in Philadelphia. It was an insanely hot day, which I think is funny because the song takes place in the winter. Whatever season it is, I think we made a great EP for walking around your neighborhood on a sunny day and noticing things you never noticed before.”
Recorded piecemeal in their respective homes, sometimes together, sometimes apart, Leap Day trades the live immediacy of their studio classics for something cozier, though no less rousing.
The core trio of Carmen Perry, Catherine Dwyer, and Jack Washburn have always kept up active home recording practices for their solo projects–Carmen as Addie Pray, Catherine as Spring Onion, Jack under his own name–and here we find them gently folding sounds sprung from their bedrooms into their signature brand of basement rock.
Absent a dedicated drummer for the first time in their recorded history, the band opts for simple drum machine accompaniment, lending the music a fresh weightlessness even as Carmen’s arresting vocals and sharp lyrics bring gravity in all their righteous anger, scathing self-reproach, and disarming tenderness. Musically, all the thrilling guitar riffs and grooving bass lines we’ve come to expect are here, but the gradual recording process offered the band more opportunity to explore and experiment, adding on subtle layers of instrumentation, distortion, and electronics, and with them a warm sense of depth. In all, Leap Day is a short and sweet, loose but confident affair; at once a reminder of Remember Sports’ absolute mastery of the pop rock anthem and a tantalizing sip from the well of ideas they have yet to plumb.
Leap Day is out now on Father/Daughter & Big Scary Monsters.
Remember Sports will begin a European tour on September 30.
Sep 30 - Belfast, UK @ Voodoo Belfast
Oct 01 - Dublin, IE @ The Grand Social
Oct 03 - Bristol, UK @ Exchange Basement
Oct 04 - Manchester, UK @ Night & Day Cafe
Oct 05 - Glasgow, UK @ Hug & Pint
Oct 06 - Leeds, UK @ Hyde Park Book Club
Oct 07 - Oxford, UK @ Jericho
Oct 08 - London, UK @ The Lexington *sold out*
Oct 10 - Brighton, UK @ The Prince Albert
Oct 12 - Paris, FR @ Supersonic
Oct 13 - Tienen, BE @ Plan B
Oct 14 - Kassel, DE @ Franz Ulrich
Oct 15 - Hannover, DE @ Béi Chéz Heinz
Oct 16 - Köln, DE @ Bumann & Sohn
Oct 18 - Frankfurt, DE @ Ponyhof
Oct 19 - Leipzig, DE @ Neues Schauspiel
Oct 20 - Berlin, DE @ Badehaus
Oct 21 - Hamburg, DE @ Molotow
Oct 22 - Rotterdam, NL @ Left Of The Dial Fest
Oct 23 - Breda, NL @ Mezz
Oct 25 - Vienna, AT @ Venster99
Oct 26 - Cesena, IT @ Magazzino Parallelo
Oct 27 - Verona/Vicenza, IT @ tbc
Oct 28 - Milano/Bergamo, IT, @ tbc