SPRINTS ‘Letter To Self’ Is Frantic Magic
Garage-punk band SPRINTS’ highly anticipated debut album Letter To Self is a frantic whirlwind of ferocious guitars and rushes of power chords blended with piercing lyricism and “we’ll drown out of the pain” attitude. The Dublin-based quartet, composed of vocalist Karla Chubb, bassist Sam McCann, guitarist Colm O’Reilly and drummer Jack Callan, worked with Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox to create an explosive mix of alt-rock and garage-punk that is just what the start of 2024 needs.
Starting off with the relentless drums of the opening track “Ticking”, the songs are a visceral and powerful cathartic release. Chubb has said that the record was created to release feelings of shame and pain, and they have certainly achieved that. The singles released ahead of the record, including “Shadow Of A Doubt”, “Heavy”, and the re-recorded “Literary Mind” (all about queer romance, featuring lyrics like “She’s got a literary mind and a literary look / She’s got a literally hand and it’s literally shook!”), perfectly set the tone for the album which carries heavy-hitting subject matter with ease.
“Cathedral” hits particularly deep, with Chubb making her anxieties about growing up queer in the Catholic church known. The darkness descends through lyrics such as “Maybe living’s easy / Maybe dying’s the same.” It’s defiant message against the hatred for otherness in the media, with the band saying of the track: “the people banding together over hatred singing from the same outdated hymn sheet. It’s a cry of support to those of us trying to stand up for the people they consider ‘other.’”
Each track has a unique hook that keeps you pulled into their world, and they’ve mastered the ability to spin dark concepts into riotous rock songs that make you want to dive right into the pit at their shows. Even though their subject matter extends to covering personal topics such as ADHD in the scuzzy guitar-filled “A Wreck (A Mess)” and the lasting power of trauma in “Can’t Get Enough Of It”, with the powerful, haunting repetition of the lyric “This is a living nightmare”, Sprints’ tracks never lose their accessibility and relatability - you just want to crank up the volume and lose yourself in their world, no matter what Chubb is singing about.
No doubt a very personal and brutally honest record, it closes with the title track “Letter To Self”. Have done a 180 from the opening track “Ticking” *where they question “am I alive?”) the final record leaves the band confident that they are. It’s an electric end, riotously celebrating exploring self-doubt and expressing the turbulence of feeling like an outsider, or feeling “other” in a world where we must fit in.
To demonstrate to us who Sprints are even further, the band have released a documentary about the making of the record, and the time they spent at a studio in rural Studio Black Box, La Dionnaie, France.
Sprints are touring Europe, the US and the UK in 2024 - grab your tickets here while you can!