The Dubliners scrub and beat their hands bloody between energetic punk and gothic post-punk.
They didn’t have to look far for their sound. He came to them at a Savages concert in 2019. Inspired by the dark post-punk of their iconic role models, four young Dubliners decided to make music as Sprints from now on. Now, after two EPs, the quartet delivers its highly ambitious debut: eleven crashing attacks that alternately sound like punk and post-punk, dominated by Karla Chubb’s raspy voice.
Using hypnotically repeating buzz lines, she submerges her paranoia in acoustic brutalism, “This is a living nightmare and I can’t sleep and I can’t leave” from “Can’t Get Enough Of It” is one of them. The woman is a true vocal chameleon and also masters bassy spoken vocals with greetings to Florence Shaw (Dry Cleaning), such as in “Heavy”, which also commemorates Bauhaus with tribal drums and squeaky guitar.
But sprints develop their energy best when they pack a lot of dynamic variation into a song. They have mastered the notorious quiet-loud effect, possibly invented by the Pixies, to perfection: in the three successive bolts of energy “Literary Mind”, “A Wreck (A Mess)” and “Up And Comer” they build up guitar walls to fall in love with, while scrubbing and pat your hands bloody. One hopes for Sprints that they can build on the level of success of their Dublin post-punk colleagues Gilla Band and Fontaines DC.
Author: Michael Prenner