The Sports - Sondra
#465
May 1981
The Sports
Sondra
Genre: Australian Rock
3.5 out of 5
Highlights:
How Come
Passionette
Lucky Shop
Oh…stralia.
Ever since the Listening Post staff happened upon the Dunedin music in the later years of this project, they have seemingly become obsessed with mining that country’s vast library of bizarre and interesting takes on rock. It’s not just Hoodoo Gurus for us. It’s much much more than Nick Cave and his bad seeds. There’s excess. (See what I did there?)
And, does the land of Oz even have claim to Rick Springfield anymore?
Here’s a band that I guess made some noise down under with their previous records and, like the Strawbs, fall flat when I finally come across them. Not that are bad, just that they swing for fences that seem to be out of reach. Like “Face the Tiger” or “Clint 2” offset the better tracks like “Passionette’ or the joy of “Happy Feet”. And then it ends with some psychedelic weirdness that kind of makes me wonder if they had listened to “Across the Universe” a few too many times.
Listen to “How Come” and I swear you will hear the Farriss brothers’ sound permeating. But INXS hadn’t really mastered this yet and I bet you they had a The Sports record in their collection. Steve Cummings could have been Michael Hutchence’s teacher.
But the Farriss boys have a better ear for a hit than these guys, at this point.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/sondra/373348546
