Remember Sports, The Refrigerator

The Refrigerator sees Ohio rockers Remember Sports trade in some of their 2010’s liveliness for sober clarity over some crisp (albeit mostly familiar) melodies. In contrast with earlier projects such as Sunchokes or Slow Buzz, which carved out a prominent niche for the band in the broader 2010’s indie milieu by stitching together bright-eyed earnestness and frenetic emotion in equal measure, their latest album pulls back the throttle a little, giving us a chance to see something more pensive, more mature, and ultimately more full. 

Banging along from the charmingly country inflected "Across The Line" into alternating bare-bones punk rallies "Bug" and "Thumb," much of the foundation of this record is ground we’ve covered with Remember Sports many times before, and it’s ground we truly enjoy covering. But there are a few additive innovations worked in. "Selfish," which sees vocalist Carmen Perry swinging elliptically over a dusty highway Americana-tinged pop punk ballad, ultimately to triumphantly pierce through into something resembling closure, “Seltzer can in the sand made the day go by so slow, didn’t think that scratch was gonna scar." 

A real standout piece of this album is "Ghost," which takes a doleful and ultimately buoyant meditation on the memories we keep of those we love, “The kitchen table split in two, and I thought of you.” and launches it into the atmosphere on sustained bagpipes. It also subtextually points to the presence which haunts this album’s interior stretches - age. In between reedy, exposed synths and Julian Fader’s kinetic drums on Roadkill, we’re told that from the vantage point of Perry, Fader, Dwyer, and Washburn, “The world looks different now, I’ve got glasses on, and the temperature’s come down." And we have no choice to conclude during the road-trip, credits-roll valley at the end of "Zucchini" that “Visions and expectations never added up at all." 

But importantly, these moments never come across telegraphing self-pity or any unhealthy attachment to the way things were - rather we’re encouraged to resolve some of these loose ends, pass a judgment, and keep moving. 

Later songs like "Cut Fruit" see the band returning to some of the early-20’s vitality that energized their anthemic past work, but this time the textures are more open, more reflective. Riffs reinforce and overlap for a little bit longer, and structures fade away of their own accord. Feedback certainly still gnarls in and around these tracks (particularly Yowie), and cohesion is playfully toyed with until we ride the sine wave back down into dual closers "Soothe/Seethe" and "Nevermind." 

The overarching vibe here is like the afterglow of a mutually beneficial relationship coming to a natural end. Nothing feels forced, and nothing feels padded. The party’s over, and that’s okay because it lasted all night after all. The sun’s rising, and it’s time to finally drive home. After all, you have work in a few hours.