Album of the week: Karla Chubb cuts loose in Sprints’ blistering Letter to Self

Let’s be honest. How familiar are you with any of the five, all-male winners of the show? Just to jog the memory, they were Pat Byrne, Keith Hanley, Brendan McCahey, Patrick Donoghue and Michael Lawson.

Karla Chubb was a contestant back in 2014 and must cringe at the memory now, especially when one considers that she was ‘coached’ by Westlife’s Kian Egan. Footage of her performances are on YouTube.

Failing to achieve pop stardom was likely a blessing in disguise for the Dubliner, who now fronts one of the country’s most talked-about new bands. Sprints do a fine line in punk and garage rock and are signed to the hip Berlin label City Slang.

Early singles whipped up considerable hype and the quartet’s debut album, Letter to Self, lives up to expectations. Across 11 songs and weighing in at a comparatively lean 40 minutes, this is a blistering, thrilling statement of intent that transports the band’s already celebrated live prowess to the studio.

As hinted by the title, it’s an album rooted in Chubb’s own experience and while, lyrically, her vulnerabilities are writ large, the muscularity of the music must feel cathartic to her, just as it does to us, the listeners.

A case in point is provided by the album’s masterful central track, Shadow of A Doubt. In this unvarnished look at what constant anxiety does to our heads, Chubb sings “There’s a burning in my chest/ Maybe this living’s not for me” over a steady, controlled beat before a full band onslaught. Here, and throughout, guitarist Colm O’Reilly, drummer Jack Callan and bassist Sam McCann flex their muscles. The results are furious and frenetic, an incendiary wall of noise that won’t be contained.

The album is produced by Gilla Band bass player Daniel Fox. He certainly knows a thing or two about garage punk that goes for broke — but is careful to rein in any excesses.

A short, sharp shock seems to be the order of the day and influences from the likes of Sonic Youth and the Breeders can be discerned, especially on A Wreck (A Mess), with its quite/loud dynamics and pregnant pauses. Credit, too, to Chubb for successfully shoehorning a reference to the Bechdel test into the lyrics.

The Voice of Ireland’s loss is clearly the indie-punk lover’s gain.

For an entirely different listen, look no further than Big Sigh, the fourth album from English singer Marika Hackman. Partly inspired by the pandemic, she has written highly personal songs to get under the skin. Listen to No Caffeine — an arresting, strings-flecked anthem about the messy magnificence and pleasures and pains of modern existence.