Looking through the debut project of SPRINTS, there is an unabashed sense of feverish smoke that comes out of the pummeling post-punk grooves, shredding garage rock riffs, and the intense vocals of Karla Chubb. ‘Letter to Self’ is a debut album conveying heaving desperation that might get brushed down with the smooth production and narrow lyrical flair, but still gets the point across through its compositional and vocal punches.
Within the music industry where the treatment of female employees and artists is disjointed and messy, the paths to break out on their own and inherit some bravery to step out is a rough turn within itself, experiencing being trodden again and again. It’s anxious and suffocating for the women who are in those situations, where to find the exit on those cavernous sets of masculine murk, they’ll need to muster more willpower as they try to find others that will help them out of those messy parts of the industry. And immediately, through the barking vocal prowess of Karla Chubb, there is a fire burning away with SPRINTS’ debut project, ‘Letter to Self’.
Building upon the Post-Punk and Garage Punk sounds of their past EPs, ‘Letter to Self’ firmly rips them all apart from the get-go, where the intense melodies just break the path apart. And intense indeed, because there is a burnish charge towards the grooves and especially the guitars that allow the melodies to punch their way through. The ascending energy that comes on ‘Cathedral’ is shown through the vibrant guitar notes paired with the heaving percussion that gallops away after the chorus lines, imbuing their manic rips of tension with rushes of noise sweeps that are executed wondrously. The pummeling post-punk grooves and the gnashing garage rock flair continue forth on cuts like ‘Up and Comer’ and ‘Heavy’ with their tempests of drums and guitars allowing the melodic fervor to shine, alongside ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ and ‘Letter to Self’ where the guitar feedback just floors with a stinging edge. Amidst these grooves that are well composed, however, the smoothened polish in the production courtesy of Daniel Fox could’ve added rougher edges to these melodies that would bring more seething flair to the compositions. And the overall compositions don’t exactly skyrocket to greatness most of the time, as there are hooks and melodic phrases that are not strongly cutting and are mostly held up by the performances or the decent production around them.
However, if there is one entity that does manage to keep everything together, it’s Karla Chubb’s performance on the project. There is a barking tone to her voice that is overall consistent throughout the record, running through these inflamed melodies and instrumentation really effectively. On the cut ‘Ticking’, her voice immediately pierces through the first few minutes of the song as she goes through dramatic singing that picks up more weight going on, eventually bringing more husky texture and shouty tone that still conveys intensity. Of course, she does manage to turn that power into something vulnerable as best displayed in ‘Shaking Their Hands’ and ‘A Wreck (A Mess)’ where the modulation does not underplay that strength but tilts it in a way that manages to show more dimensions of her tone.
And with that intensity flooding through the entire project, it does color what is being shown within the writing. Presenting the perspective of Karla Chubb’s experiences and observations within the music industry that becomes so exhausting and numbing for women like her - especially with the details of queerness and religious upbringing that also comes with additional struggles - who have to play their game that might allow her to survive, but can also come with very dicey situations that only put a toll on her life. There is desperation that’s being described throughout the project, one that comes from being in a system that only downplays female individuals like Karla Chubb as she keeps getting tossed around, rendering her mental state in agonizingly slow motion. It’s a hopeless environment all the way, where the chance of someone helping out and the chance of finally running away from that environment as a woman working in those frustrating systems just keeps getting dimmer every single day, repeating the same anxious work shifts and taking away that strength to keep moving forward. Amongst that arc, there is indeed hope to be found. On the last track, ‘Letter to Self’, Karla Chubb shakes away what pulls her down and recognizes her strength that she can empower in the future. The world may throw more shit at her, but despite that, she can pave the path she wants to walk onto, find the destination that will eventually make her happy. The writing does present a neat arc, yet it could have been touched up a bit to allow that desperation to click fully, especially when it can get claustrophobic in a way that starts to get pit through in its despairing state.
Imbued with enough fervor to stick the landing, ‘Letter to Self’ is a neat debut that immediately recognizes what the strengths of the band are. From the feverish melodies to the effectively dramatic vocals from Karla Chubb, it allows some tracks to immediately stick out, even despite the compressed arc that could have opened up more layers to that fringed desperation and the production that could have been brought with some rough edge and biting sharpness to allow the melodies to become a bit stronger and less uniformed as it is. Still, the project comes overall potent, where there is enough sharpness around it that presents the potential for the band moving forward. When all the exhaustion presses one apart with no one to come save them, sometimes the only way to get out of that downbeat environment is to let themselves know that they can get out of that mess, a self-written letter that will toughen their spirit on the struggles that they’ll go through.
Favorite Tracks: ‘Heavy’, ‘Cathedral’, ‘Shadow of a Doubt’, ‘Up and Comer’, ‘Letter to Self’
Least Favorite Track: ‘Can’t Get Enough of It’