Album Review: SPRINTS, Letter To Self

One of our 2020 Hot For picks – “The explosive vocals of Karla Chubb blast them into the stratosphere,” we opined – it was always a case of “when” not “if” SPRINTS would sell a truckload of records.

That it’s happened so spectacularly with their debut Letter To Self album is testament to 1). The insane amount of touring SPRINTS have done these past few years years. 2). The visceral nature of those shows and 3). The quality of their songwriting which extends far beyond the Dubliners’ self-proclaimed ‘garage rock’ remit.

Not since Therapy?’s heyday has there been an Irish drum sound as fearsome as the one on album opener ‘Ticking’, a devastating statement of intent that kicks you in the gut and makes zero apologies for it afterwards.

Like Letter To Self’s other ten tracks, it’s as melodious as it is muscular with the aforementioned Ms. Chubb’s harmonies sounding like The Ronettes on angel dust.

If it’s some punky paranoia you’re after, look no further than ‘Heavy’ which finds the singer darkly intoning “And I can’t sleep/ And I can barely breathe/ And I’m watching the world go around the window beside me” while the boys in the band make a Buzzcocks-ian racket.

“They say you call it punch drunk love/ Call it powers to abusers/ He spits his propane and my refusal is a fueller” Chubb further proclaims on ‘Cathedral’, a mixture of white hot anger and two-fingered defiance which features riffing of the metallic Black Sabbath variety.

Nagging concerns about Letter To Self starting to sound samey are alleviated by ‘Adore Adore Adore’, a song that slowly stalks its prey before going in for the kill.

Whether couplets like “Has the taste of my skin on your tongue turned bad?” are autobiographical is something that probably only Chubb knows for certain, but they make for wonderfully vicarious listening.

Intentional or not, ‘Can’t Get Enough’ has a big bang of The Smiths about it while the arch ‘Literary Mind’ is SPRINTS at their most radio-friendly.

Tongues remain planted in cheeks on ‘A Wreck (A Mess)’ – “Life’s a party but I didn’t ask for a dinner date” – with ‘Up And Comer’ and the title-track ensuring that there’s no last minute dip in quality.

After two weeks of chain-listening, I'm pleased to report that Letter To Self ranks alongside The Undertones, U2's Boy and Sinéad O'Connor's The Lion And The Cobra as one of the all-time great Irish debuts.

9/10

Stay tuned for our upcoming interview with SPRINTS in the 'Hot For 2024' issue of Hot Press, out next week...