Sprints - The Hope and Ruin Brighton 28/2/2022

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Every now and then a cultural rift in the music scene is formed, with the likes of New York’s wave of punk and garage rock in the '70s, Seattle and its birth of grunge music throughout the '80s or Manchester’s iconic ‘Madchester’ scene in the late '80s early '90s, who’s to say where the next era of musical legacy will be built. Perhaps it’ll be the thriving collective of contemporary post-punk/new wave talent that is flowing out of the heart of Dublin, Fontaines DC, Gilla Band, The Murder Capital, Pillow Queens, Sinead O’Brien, the list goes on. One band that does deserve their name close to the top of this meticulous list: Sprints, a quartet of garage-noise punk filled with driving pulsed rhythms, blistering melodies, paired with a viscerally charged energy. 

 

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Playing at The Hope and Ruin on the 28th of February, Brighton’s hotspot for all the best exciting, up-and-coming artists, Sprints did not fail to hold up the prestige of their fellow counterparts. Playing an hour set, filled with a cathartic vigour, Sprints played with everything they had, but the most commendable part of the whole set was the passion they played with, clearly loving every second on-stage, creating something so immersible and enchanting to watch.

 

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From the get-go, Sprints held a captivating grip on an already rapturous audience, courtesy of fantastic support sets from GENN and SCOUNGE. Opening their set with one of their earlier singles, ‘Drones’, it was evident that this was going to be something special. The vocals were raw and gritty, powerful and honest, with a poetic flair castigating the monotony of modern living, tedious misogyny, wearying jobs and the ignorance that surrounds mental health. The guitars were fast, heavy, filled with textual dissonance, fusing classic punk hooks with calculated noise and squealing feedback. The drums propelled everything forward, a driving motor that lay underneath the rest of the band. Their presence on-stage (and occasionally, off the stage) was another highlight of their set, performing with such adrenaline fumed energy, Sprints created an infectious atmosphere, almost impossible not to chant and bop along to. 

 

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Along with playing some of their more notable tracks like ‘Modern Job’ and ‘How Does The Story Go?’, Sprints threw in a couple of new tracks for the audience, including ‘Heavy’, a much darker, menacing track off of their latest EP release ‘A Modern Job’. It is of no surprise that the audience demanded an encore from a band of this quality, which they duly delivered, welding punk young and old, as Sprints played a medley of Wet Leg’s ‘Chaise Long’ and LeTigre’s ‘Decepticon’, a surprising creation that worked incredibly well in Sprints style of crescendoed tension.

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Sprints manage to create such a strong familiarity within their music, ironically their music offers an escape from the distress of a modern world, a world currently filled with such hate and struggle but for just one moment, everything felt like it was going to be okay.