CD of The Week

Ireland’s Sprints are back with a heavy, darkly intense record that departs from conventional hook and melody design to deliver a volcano of built-up anger and need for action. On their debut album last year, Letter to Self, Sprints were keen on using repetition to build songs into a frustrated frenzy. Although they continue with that structure across the new record All That Is Over, they expanded their songwriting to explore sonic textures and empty space. The album opener “Abandon” illustrates just that: quiet monotone vocals alongside sparse drums plus echoing guitar. The tune lurches along with constant anticipation in a study of minimal percussive sound. But they never deliver a hook. On the other hand, “Pieces” starts off with noise and feedback, turning immediately into a hostile circle pit. And the single “Descartes” is an aggressive instructional manifesto about how the root of negativity and shame is egotistical vanity. Both songs blast off, peak instantly, then never back down.

But Sprints are best when they slide the volume/tempo fader bar up gradually over the course of a track. Their satirically confessional single “Beg” wakes up slowly, with synth and vocals sounding like Bjork’s “Hunter” before the drums and guitar onslaught kicks off an anthemic chant pleading for absolution. It parallels the current political climate affecting large swaths of the globe. Singer Karla Chubb recently told Kerrang, “Often it’s those in positions of power that preach their moral codes and judgments, while committing the most heinous crimes themselves.” That character assessment is also felt on “Rage,” with a driving tempo that builds into fury. Chubb sings, “All he knows is rage, rage, rage / And all he spreads is rage, rage, rage.” The song emulates the word rage like a musical onomatopoeia. But the best example of growing wrath comes from the best track on the album, “Something’s Going to Happen.” With each passing verse, the vocals gain focus and passion, and the influence of her rhetoric grows until the message feels specifically aimed at you. This song also mirrors the political climate; there is only so much that the public can take with unchecked oppression, and obvious lying and scheming running rampant. This anthem is an overheated pot finally boiling over.

The greatest art is born from a need to express, and although there has been an overabundance of material externally, part of the record’s composition comes from internal turmoil. In the Sub Pop press release, Chubb listed many personal changes impacting the band. “I was going through a big break-up with my partner who I’d been with for eight years; Colm [their former guitarist] had left the band; we’d really progressed into being professional musicians, and I was at the start of a new relationship.” The whirlwind, stop-start “Need” uses repetition and intensity of the lyric “I Need You” to make the author sound trapped in a toxic relationship, however, by the end, they break from the Stockholm trauma bond by uttering “I need you to leave me the f*ck alone, actually.”  And the ambitious, “cowboy gothic” album-ender “Desire” rediscovers the nervous passion of a new love. It is a soundscape of aural ideas that juxtapose dead zones with heartbeats and soaring, alarming guitars with delicate vocals that grow ferocious, much like Mannequin Pussy’s “Loud Bark,” transforming anxious tension into explosions.

The new record captures pure adrenaline and uninhibited mood in a raw, festering state. It proves that the vibe of a tune can be just as powerful as a catchy hook, sometimes more so. Some of the album has already been road-tested, and crowds are embracing these songs as they identify the way many of us have been feeling for a while. Sprints have their U.S. tour booked, making a stop at Johnny Brenda’s on Saturday, February 7th. Let us rage together.