SPRINTS | Letter to Self | City Slang | January 2024
With the opening line of Irish punks SPRINTS’ “Heavy,” vocalist/guitarist Karla Chubb lets us know that she has “a simple idea” and that she’s “going to make it stick.” It’s one of the most concrete statements on the band’s debut album, and it’s only half true. After a spot of counting to three – which she repeats immediately after as if confirming a password – she asks, “Do you ever feel like the room is heavy?” Where could this go!? Will Chubb enlighten us with a personal expression of her anxieties, insights only she could provide? Is this the setup for a Jerry Seinfeld stand-up bit? Alas, though she repeats the question no fewer than nine times – as though this will “make it stick” – we are denied both. Just untethered allusions to sweaty air and insomnia – also repeated ad nauseam. On Letter to Self, SPRINTS only proffer vagaries: a blank screen of generalized woe that begs to be projected upon because it has nothing to say unless we feed it our own movies.
Chubb wants you to know how “personal” Letter to Self is, which is something you could likely glean from its title. “All these stories are like stones weighing me down, and now I’ve shed a few of them,” Chubb told DIY. It would be great to know what these stories are because they’re sure not here. “Cathedral” may be the closest thing to a narrative presented: it at least points to some discontent between her and her parents (“Mother, father / I’m sorry to say my disposition lives another day / You’re not going to be happy / Are any of us happy?”), and through tacked-on references to the Holy Spirit and ghost, you’ll piece together that this is likely about homophobia – both external and internal – as a consequence of hardline Catholicism, and then mostly confirm this if you hunt down an interview or presser. The writing is still hamfisted and undercooked, entirely arc-less and ultimately capsized by melodramatic recitations of middle-schooler journal poetry (“Maybe that’s the beauty / Maybe that’s the pain / Maybe living’s easy / Maybe dying’s the same”) and a lazy, incessant drowning metaphor that rears its ugly head once more on “Adore Adore Adore.” But as choppy as it is, there’s something within “Cathedral,” some minute kernel to latch onto.
But the catastrophic failure of messaging only worsens on subsequent tracks. “Shadow of a Doubt,” Chubb told Hot Press, “is [SPRINTS’] most vulnerable moment to date.” The vocal performance – breathy and stumbling – would indicate as much, but it plays like amateur theater when paired with lyrics stymied at, again, overly repetitious allusions: to a crying in the head that becomes a siren for one verse and reverts to crying, to a vague sense of lostness, etc. Perhaps we’re expected to infer that the song’s subject is so traumatic that Chubb still can’t open up about it. Okay, what about “Can’t Get Enough of It?” Well, that Weetabix-dry chugger opens with the monotone sprechgesang, “This is a living nightmare / And I am living so scared.” That’s enough of that, let’s try “Literary Mind.” This one seems to be about a partner or a crush who is bookish in temperament and appearance. She’s also a killer and a thriller. It’s hard to care when the instrumental is a half-step away from a U2 b-side with some bonus distortion slathered on top.
At their absolute best, SPRINTS sound like baby Bauhaus swaddled in bubble wrap, crawling down the stairs while being captured in HD on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, or Savages if they couldn’t write a riff. They aren’t incapable of slinking into a shadowy atmosphere, but the production – handled by Gilla Band’s bassist, Daniel Fox – completely undercuts any sense of danger. It’s studio garage punk, with all its flaws under the magnifying glass. Bassist Sam McCann is doing way too much in an attempt to distract from the guitars, which only ends up highlighting the simplicity of their tricks. No amps or pedals can cover for the sheer disregard of melodic and rhythmic construction: chords spill forth with no clear direction, reliant on tone and tempo crunch for distinction. Sometimes, they can effectively build tension, like on “Heavy,” but Chubb’s vocals always belie catharsis. When she belts or growls, there’s apprehension: a sense that she’s acutely aware of her limitations and doesn’t want to fly too close to the sun. These harsh plateaus cast suspicions on Letter to Self’s quieter dramatics: every mutter, every quiver, every faux-stuttered “b-b-beautiful” starts to ring hollow.
Before SPRINTS, Chubb, guitarist Colm O’Reilly, and drummer Jack Callan played indie folk together but found inspiration in a Savages set and the success of Gilla Band to make a hard pivot. “You’re kinda like, ‘Fuck it, I can do that then. I can write super honestly and weirdly about these bizarre topics.’” Chubb told Stereogum. Eventually, you read enough of these interviews that Letter to Self makes more sense. It is modern Western European post-punk’s proven formula approximated via a 3D printer. It is “IDLES when they were good,” but not good. It’s been the wave for over a decade, and as long as The Guardian still finds time to prop up bands like SPRINTS in between data collection on anti-Zionist protesters (very punk), it won’t die down. If we build it, they will come, for better or worse.
Note: This review was originally published in Rantipole.
Travis Shosa is a writer from Spring, TX. They are the EIC and managing editor of Dodo Eraser. Their creative writing is featured in Stanchion, Maudlin House, HAD, Bending Genres, The Bulb Region, HAWKEYE, Some Words and lots of other cool places. They have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Their journalism has been featured in Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, The Line of Best Fit, PAPER, and others.
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