There’s a peculiar dread that settles in around the three-minute mark of Abandon, the opening track of Sprints‘ second album. The Dublin quartet have spent those minutes building something ominous and patient, all delayed bass thrums and Karla Chubb‘s reverb-draped vocals whispering about becoming unrecognisable. You keep waiting for the explosion that defined so much of their 2024 debut, Letter to Self. But it never arrives. That refusal to give you what you expect tells you everything about where Sprints are now.
All That Is Over isn’t a rejection of what made this band essential. Walk into any Sprints show and you’ll still find that same sweat-drenched communion, that rare space where aggression and welcome coexist. But Chubb spent the year following Letter to Self dealing with the particular madness that comes from sudden success, from a breakup after eight years, from watching Gaza burn whilst playing festivals. She was writing constantly because there was simply too much to process. What emerged is an album that sounds like someone who’s stopped asking permission.
The shift is clearest in how these eleven tracks breathe. Where Letter to Self thrashed and exorcised, All That Is Over knows when to pause. To the Bone takes its time building from chilly restraint into something triumphant, almost Gothic in its sweep. Descartes, the first single, channels that restless energy into something tighter. Chubb flips Descartes’ famous proposition into her own: “I speak so therefore I understand.” It’s a song about using creation as survival rather than mere expression, sparked by a line from Rachel Cusk’s Outline about vanity being our culture’s curse. The guitars churn and the rhythm section locks into something relentless, but there’s control underneath the chaos now.
Producer Daniel Fox of Gilla Band gives these songs room to exist in their own strange dimensions. His production adds layers of sibilant static and industrial texture that make moments of quiet feel loaded with threat. Listen to how Something’s Gonna Happen builds for nearly forty seconds on just drums and an unsettling hum before Chubb asks, “Do you ever feel like something’s gonna happen?” By that point in the record, you’ve already descended into the murky depths of Need and climbed back out during the anthemic peaks of To the Bone. You know with certainty that something will happen. The tension pools like floodwater behind a dam, and when it finally breaks around the two-and-a-half-minute mark, the release is enormous. The whole band locks into an almost mechanical assault, turning the group chorus into a mantra: “Push push me me hard / Watch me I’ll go far.”
Need plays a different game entirely. It lures you in with what sounds like desperate codependency before Chubb cuts through with what she actually needs: for you to leave her alone. There’s humour in that bait-and-switch, but also genuine fury. The production gives it a raw burst of energy that recalls the sweltering chaos of an Amyl and the Sniffers set or the satirical bite of Viagra Boys.
Then there’s Beg, which opens with stabbing strings that could have come from Fontaines D.C.‘s Starburster before morphing into something darker and more slithering. “Let me beg, let me come / Let me face toward the sun” gets delivered like a lost hymn, equal parts pleading and commanding. It’s satirical in its way, taking shots at the powerful who preach moral codes they don’t follow, but Chubb‘s delivery makes you wonder if she’s half-serious about the messianic implications.
Rage slows things down to find a sludgy glam-rock groove, dissecting those who weaponise fear and turn anger into currency. For a queer artist watching the world slide backwards, these observations carry weight. The false prophets in the room aren’t abstractions.
Better, co-led by new guitarist Zac Stephenson, offers one of the album’s most unexpected turns. It’s nearly a duet, buzzing with shoegazer shimmer that nods to My Bloody Valentine at their most melodic. The lyrics deal with that familiar ache of liking someone more before you dated them, and Chubb‘s wordplay brings levity: “Dropped our pennies in the well but I’m not wishing you well at all.” It could feel out of place, but instead it proves the band’s range without apology.
Coming Alive delivers the album’s boldest melodic hook, the kind of urgent anthem that makes sense of all those bigger venues Sprints have been filling. Then there’s Desire, the six-minute closing statement that begins as a surf-tinged tango and ends in complete pandemonium. The middle section sees Chubb repeating “It’s the good, the bad, the best you ever had” sixteen times until the words dissolve into pure sound and the band erupts into a squalling freakout. Feedback swirls, drums pound with mounting intensity, and Chubb finds another gear entirely. Around the eighth repetition, the phrase melts down into meaningless syllables, but she pushes through with manic conviction. The Western guitar motif returns as things settle, leaving you desperate to start the whole journey again.
There’s debate about whether Sprints have lost some raw fury in favour of these more sculpted approaches. Tracks like Descartes and Need, whilst powerful, feel slightly restrained compared to the incendiary blasts that defined Letter to Self. The measured songwriting doesn’t always allow those moments of pure visceral release that made songs like Ticking so thrilling.
But maybe that criticism misses something crucial. Chubb has said the first album was made with a male-dominated industry constantly watching, that self-consciousness holding her back. This record? She couldn’t care less. You hear that freedom in how willing they are to experiment, to let Desire sprawl across six minutes, to make Better sound almost tender. Sprints emerged from 2024 completely transformed, and All That Is Over captures a band processing that transformation whilst the paint’s still wet.
The activism that’s always been central to Sprints runs through these songs like a live wire. Like many Irish acts, they’ve been vocal about Palestine from the start, and that consciousness of global horror sits alongside the personal turmoil and touring exhaustion. The album’s title comes from a lyric in Beg, pointing toward cleansing and new beginnings even as the world feels uglier than ever.
Jack Callan‘s drumming plays a crucial role in building that tension and release dynamic, whilst Sam McCann‘s bass provides the low-end weight that makes the quiet moments genuinely unnerving and the loud ones feel like they’re rattling your ribcage. Stephenson, joining after Colm O’Reilly‘s departure, has integrated without disrupting the band’s chemistry. His contributions on Better show he’s not just filling a gap but bringing his own voice to the project.
Second albums flatten plenty of bands who’ve spent everything on their debut. Sprints sidestep that trap by refusing to repeat themselves wholesale. All That Is Over is a record made by a group that toured relentlessly, dealt with lineup changes and personal upheaval, and kept writing through all of it. Nothing here feels calculated. It’s darker in places, more patient, willing to let songs exist in discomfort before offering resolution. Chubb remains one of the most compelling frontwomen in modern rock. That hair-raising wail, that lyrical intelligence, she’s the gravitational centre here.
If you loved the raw exorcism of Letter to Self, this might take adjustment. But give it time and space. Let Abandon’s unreleased tension wash over you. Let Something’s Gonna Happen build until you’re convinced something terrible or wonderful is about to occur. Let Desire’s manic repetition pull you into its chaos. This is Sprints learning what they can do with control and patience, discovering that sometimes the most punk gesture is refusing to give people exactly what they want. The fire hasn’t gone anywhere. They’ve just learned how to aim it better.
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