SPRINTS have wasted no time getting their 2024 off to a strong start. On the first Friday of January, they unleashed their beast of a debut album, ‘Letter to Self’, and it’s an absolute garage-punk sensation. 

Asserting themselves as a band that makes ‘angry music you can dance to’, the Dublin-hailing four-piece are rapidly motioning towards being a major player, very early on this year. The hastiness of getting their record out almost before everybody’s Christmas trees were down goes hand in hand with the run-don’t-walk nature of their name and, clearly, their ethos.

I was first drawn to them during a long car journey with my other half. Road trips are best set to the tuneful recommendations of BBC Radio 6 Music, after all. ‘Up and Comer’ had this darkly commanding style to its softer, building verses, which turned deliciously raucous as the song went on. We were hooked and downloaded it immediately. Then with a quick search of their Instagram, I’d found the outfit were due to tour their upcoming (at that point) debut, in the spring. Easy. Done. Another couple of fans in the bag for SPRINTS. 

So, obviously, I was excited by the premise of hearing that single again, on the album. But, to my joy, I soon discovered it wasn’t the strongest banger in the 11-track collection, which I reckon is testament to how solid this band is. I always enjoy albums that are curated that way, too; plenty of hits remain to be unearthed. It’s either a happy coincidence based on my own subjective view, or they’d designed it so we’d have even more to devour on 5th January. The favourite for me? ‘Cathedral’. It’s fierce, gnarly and oh-so riffy. 

You don’t have to scramble for adjectives when describing the overall vibe of what SPRINTS have delivered. There’s a vulnerability to the slower-starting ‘Shaking Their Hands’ and ‘Can’t Get Enough of It’. Meanwhile, frantic and frenzied, ‘Heavy’, ‘Adore Adore Adore’ and ‘Literary Mind’ are brash, stellar standouts that’ll earn the moshers’ votes. 

And lyrically, before you even get to the closing title track, you can detect a real cathartic transparency to a lot of their body of work here. This leaves you understanding that the band have put blood, sweat and tears into this record, and it isn’t simply a thrashy exhibit of guitars. Coarse, crisp vocals, six-string finery and trigger-happy drumming has been poured into each lick of ‘Letter to Self’, and I for one am seriously feeling the urgency to witness them in action…

If you only download one track, let it be: ‘Cathedral’