Sprints Tickets

here’s a lyric burnt into ‘Abandon’ - the slow, searing scorch of an opening track that begins SPRINTS’ gargantuan second album ‘All That Is Over’ - that cuts to the core of the incendiary Dublin quartet right now: “I don’t grow old / I grow unrecognisable”.

Not only does it kick the door down to a record that wrestles with the horrors outside and the strengths within, planting its feet in the ground and fighting for the necessity of art and hope and love amidst an incomprehensible world on fire, it also neatly winks at SPRINTS’ own thrilling trajectory. Having underlined their status as one of Ireland’s most exciting breakthrough bands with their universally-acclaimed 2024 debut ‘Letter To Self’, now vocalist and guitarist Karla Chubb, bassist Sam McCann, drummer Jack Callan and new guitarist Zac Stephenson are returning for their second act as an evolved entity: stronger, sharper and fully assured.

“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.”

The groundwork that SPRINTS laid down with their debut marked them out as a musical triple threat amongst the alternative landscape: a visceral live band capable of selling out increasingly sizeable tours, who could earn five star reviews (NME, DIY and more) and an Irish Choice Music Prize nod from critical corners but also land themselves on BBC Radio One. Throughout 2024 alone, they toured the UK, Europe and America twice, ending the year with a celebratory, sold-out show at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town.

‘All That Is Over’ is a remarkable record in itself - a second album that pushes the dynamics of the band into richer territory, finding new space and nuance but also going harder than ever. However there’s a potency born from the “baptism of fire” beginnings of their current line-up that infuses SPRINTS’ second with a whole new energy. “By the time we ended up working on new stuff, we’d played so many shows together that the natural chemistry me, Karla and Sam had built up over years, Zac had very quickly developed too,” Jack says.

Sticking two fingers up whilst doubling down on the visceral spirit of fierce artistic honesty that’s always been at the heart of the band, ‘All That Is Over’ finds SPRINTS entering their second chapter with nothing left to hold them back.