Rage meets dance-punk on Dublin four piece, SPRINTS’, first full length release. After a smattering of well received singles and a trail of blazing live performances, the group released their album following the success of their previous EP, A Modern Job. The Irish punk band’s star continues to rise in the good company of contemporaries Fontaines DC and Pillow Queens- Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox even produced the group’s most recent release.
Garage rock gets extra sludgy on LP Letter to Self released on City Slang. Anxieties about religion, politics and mental health run rampant to the tune of pounding drums and growling guitar. Album opener ‘Ticking’ goes off like a, well, bomb. Kick drum like the loudest stop watch to ever exist punctuates existential lyrics and a guitar riff that sounds like the descent down a spiral staircase. Eventually exploding into a wall of noise with a scream and wave of guitars, the track cuts off after a gale of screams and melodic outro. Other heavier tracks include, aptly named, ‘Heavy’, ‘Cathedral’ and ‘Up and Comer’. A tension filled riff snakes through ‘Heavy’ with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. The band has a unique ability to fill you with dread almost instantaneously while keeping your head bobbing to the beat. Religious tensions run deep on ‘Cathedral’; a track haunted by front person Karla Chubb’s lyrics about growing up as a queer person in the Catholic Church. SPRINTS goes out of their way to include, to promote, to show you you’re not alone in any of your struggles- no one is. The quiet-loud-quiet of ‘Up and Comer’ reaches overdrive on its bombastic chorus of “they say she’s good for an up and comer/ can I please be an up and comer”. While the bass doesn’t steal the show on any tracks it’s the steel beam support needed for a band this tightly wound. While bassist Sam McCann holds down the low end, trilling guitar fans out over the track.
SPRINTS turn things down on ‘Shaking Their Hands’ and ‘Literary Mind’. A slow burn, ‘Shaking Their Hands’ introduces itself with a spare guitar and soft vocals; the volume is edged up as multiple voices layer on top of each other then fade back into the original riff. ‘Literary Mind’ sounds like Fontaines DC meets Teenage Fanclub without being a ripoff of either. My favourite track on the album, it pushes and pulls with gang vocals relying heavily on the charisma of each musician.
The band pulls from many influences with ‘Can’t Get Enough of It’ bubbling up with semi buried vocals and fuzzy instrumentation that harkens back to a 90s alternative rock fever dream. ‘A Wreck (A Mess)’ delves into pop-punk flavoured waters, with not only its name but the chug chug of palm muted guitar and ecstatic drums.
Letter to Self is an angry, forlorn, triumphant, community building, emotional rollercoaster. SPRINTS let the volume ebb and flow across the album but never lose their energy. A vibrant live band, here’s to hoping for an international tour in 2024.
