‘ALL THAT IS OVER’ THE EXPLOSIVE NEW ALBUM BY SPRINTS

ALBUM REVIEW | SPRINTS – ALL THAT IS OVER by Rachel Brown

“I think we came out of 2024 as quite literally different people and a completely different band to how we entered it,” says Karla. “There was a lot of growing and a lot of work on myself, and in the background, we did a lot of work as friends and on being there for each other as a band. Album one was so riddled with self-consciousness and a need to prove myself in a very male-dominated industry that really held me back in a lot of ways. And now, on this album, I could not give less of a fuck.”

There are days when I truly love doing this. Reviewing music isn’t always glamorous, but today it feels magical. I received an email asking if I wanted to review a new album from one of my favourite bands SPRINTS, I immediately accepted and reverted to my final form, a melodramatic teenager with a Walkman and a God complex. It took me right back to being 16, racing home from the record shop like I’d just stolen something sacred, slamming a cassette into my stereo like it was a defibrillator for my soul, and preparing to feel everything all at once. Music revives me, emotionally. It’s not just entertainment, it’s life-giving. This is what I live for. It’s what I’ve always lived for. That, and of course, validation of strangers on the internet.

SPRINTS are by far one of my favourite Irish bands, and they waste no time in launching into their second album with a bang. This is not by any means a smooth arrival.

“Some people go to therapy, I shout it on stage to a couple of hundred people,” Karla told Hot Press, and that cathartic energy is all over All That Is Over.

It’s not just punk, it’s processing. It’s healing. It’s survival. SPRINTS didn’t just stumble into their sound, they earned it through years of trial, error, and hungover van rides. As Karla and Jack shared in an interview earlier this year, the band’s early days were marked by balancing 9-to-5 jobs with weekend gigs, rehearsing through lockdowns, and slowly building a reputation as one of Ireland’s most vital live acts.

All That Is Over opens with “Abandon,” a slow-burning fireworks display that makes sense of what this otherwise uncompromising album has in store. It’s here to confront you, not console you. “I don’t grow old, I grow unrecognisable,” spits Karla Chubb, and it’s not even a line so much as a credo. It’s an album of a band that has somehow been born anew, bigger and bolder than ever. I love Karla’s lyrics. You know, I identify with a lot of her writing, like so much feeling and like so many moments where it feels like she just plucked them right out of my head. Whether it’s heartbreak, frustration, questions of identity, or just trying to make sense of the chaos around us, she finds words for how we feel, and they’re raw and real. It’s not just shrewd songcrafting, it’s a kind of therapy. Her lyrics make me feel like I’ve been heard, and that’s fairly rare. Karla’s songwriting has always been personal, but All That Is Over feels like a full-body exorcism. She’s spoken openly about how writing became a way to process trauma, anxiety, and the chaos of modern life. That honesty bleeds into every track, from the defiant roar of “Need” to the aching vulnerability of “Better.”

2024’s debut album, Letter to Self, has achieved remarkable success. The Dublin-based quartet comprises Karla Chubb (vocals/guitar), Sam McCann (bass), Jack Callan (drums), and the newest addition, Zach Stephenson, on guitar.

Written in the eye of personal and global storms, breakups, burnout, Gaza, wildfires, trans rights under attack, All That Is Over is a punk record both with a pulse and a purpose. Songs like “Beg” and “Descartes” are not just cathartic, they’re confrontational. “Descartes” was a song conceived in-flight as Chubb read Rachel Cusk’s Outline. Inspired by the line “Vanity is the curse of our culture,” Chubb and Co. wrote the song in what was as close to a stream-of-consciousness, emotional escape as possible, spilling out onto paper without forethought while cranking through ideas according to an accompanying press release.

Karla is razor-sharp and poetic throughout, not just on this song but the entirety of that album, turning Descartes on his head with “I speak so therefore I understand,” calling out vanity and ego as well as cultural decomposition. I like “Rage,” it is a plea and a reckoning all in one, and the mirror held up to the chaos out there and inside our minds. It’s the sound of a band growing not just in shape, but working their way through the fire. And at that moment, you not only hear them, you feel seen.

“Something’s Gonna Happen” doesn’t just command your attention, it requires it. From the first beat, it seizes you by the collar and never lets up. It has a magnetic urgency to it, a pulse that seems as though it’s pulling you toward something inevitable. It’s not just catchy, it’s commanding, as if it knows exactly what it wants to tell you and how it wants you to feel. SPRINTS’ trademark tension is harnessed here by a band that comes with a swagger bordering on cinematic. The song ripples with prebursting tension, the sound of something right before all hell breaks loose. It’s addictive not for its polish, but for how raw, real and relentless it is. It isn’t just listening, it’s surrender. It’s the sort of song that makes you want to dance, yell and maybe even break something.

Musically, SPRINTS are stretching their limbs on All That Is Over. ‘Rage” struts with Dandy Warhols psych fuzz; “Desire”, the album’s closer, exudes Radiohead-like tension and spaghetti Western twang. “Better” mines shoegaze heartbreak, and “To The Bone” is already a live highlight. Daniel Fox (Gilla Band) is back on production, but this time around the band’s rawness has been captured with a new clarity and bite. But it’s “Need” that hits the hardest, a giant middle finger to misogyny and the gravity of public observation.

Karla’s refusal to shrink for anyone is the album’s driving force. Like virtually every Irish band, this is more than music, it’s resistance. SPRINTS has never played it safe, and they’ve never needed to. But with All That Is Over, they don’t just raise the bar, they sharpen the blade. This isn’t just a second album from SPRINTS, it’s a full-throated declaration that screams louder, shows that they are wiser, and is ultimately impossible to ignore. Every track is a fist in the air, every lyric a line drawn in the sand. They’re not asking for your attention, they’re taking it. And they mean every word.

Photo credit: David Willis