Album review: Sprints – All That Is Over

You’d expect a band called Sprints to burst out of the traps like Usain Bolt after a Red Bull binge, but the Dubliners’ second album is a masterclass in control.

It begins with Abandon, a song that – despite its title – is anything but wild; instead, it’s a glorious exercise in controlled menace with singer Karla Chubb initiating rock star mode and echoing Dante’s Inferno as she commands, 'Abandon all hope!' But in fact this is the sort of album that will restore your faith in alternative rock, and maybe even humanity. Because, as the world burns, All That Is Over is the sound of a band on fire.

There’s a fierce, unrelenting intelligence at work throughout as the band grapples with the toxicity of modern life. So, Descartes channels the French philosopher of the title, and quotes novelist Rachel Cusk into the bargain – not words ever typed in a Kerrang! review before – as clever wordplay and wiry guitar work collide. And Rage combines Amyl And The Sniffers-type belligerence while referencing theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer (also surely making his K! debut) in a consummate combination of poise and power.

Yet this is also a truly thrilling record on the most basic level; boasting a set of classy songs that are half-brains, half-brawn and all-absolute-bangers. Better shimmers in on a melody-drenched shoegazing homage; Coming Alive is the sort of urgent rock anthem festival crowds were invented for; and Something’s Gonna Happen goes all-in on edgy gothic riffing as Karla declares, 'Watch me, I’ll go far.'

She will as well. The race to rock stardom is a marathon, not a 100-metre dash. But with this superb record, Sprints – sometimes fast, sometimes furious, always fucking fantastic – prove they’re in it for the long haul.

Verdict: 5/5

For fans of: Garbage, Amyl And The Sniffers, Fontaines DC

All That Is Over is released on September 26 via City Slang