Sprints’ second album wastes no time making its intentions known. “Abandon” opens like a pressure chamber: a dry snare, delayed bass, vocals held at arm’s length, the spectral shimmer of guitar. You keep waiting for the inevitable detonation that defined parts of last year’s debut, but the payoff never arrives; the point is the refusal. It’s the first hint that All That Is Over pivots from catharsis to control—still ferocious, but sculpted, weaponizing restraint as much as release.
When that release comes, it stings. “Descartes” is a saw-toothed ripper, all fuzz-snarled guitars and tumbling drums, the chorus locked into a chant that feels engineered for the front rail. “To The Bone” stalks on a wave-goth pulse, the hi-hat hissing while clean arpeggios cut through the murk. The rhythm section is the album’s spine: basslines grunt and serrate, toms bloom in the room, cymbals smear into feedback so the guitars can either grind or gleam. Sprints haven’t reinvented post-punk’s chassis, but they tune it for torque.
Karla Chubb’s delivery widens its palette—half incantation, half bark, suddenly blooming into melody when needed. On “Rage,” she stalks a demagogue with sardonic precision; “Need” and “Beg” bolt forward with hardcore economy even as synth stabs flicker at the edges. “Pieces” rides a barbed bass figure while dissonant electronics wobble the floorboards. Then the band lets the lights flare: “Better” drapes shoegaze shimmer over a beat that keeps its shoulders back, and “Coming Alive” steps into their most unabashedly anthemic hook yet without sanding off the grit.
The record’s throughline is tension—between stage-tested power and studio discipline, between barbed polemic and private confession. Touring hard, personal upheaval, the attrition that comes with leveling up: you hear it in the way these songs hover just shy of explosion, then choose the sharper angle rather than the obvious drop. The production favors separation and headroom, letting every scrape of pick and pedal hiss register; when the full-band distortions arrive, they hit with the clarity of a fist under a bare lightbulb.
Closer “Desire” is the mission statement: a spaghetti-western guitar motif stalks forward, gathering reverb and menace until the whole thing avalanches into noise-rock exultation. If Letter to Self was exorcism by fire, All That Is Over is the aftermath—scorched, steadied, and newly purposeful. Sprints sound bigger and colder, paradoxically more human for it: a band learning how to pace the sprint within the marathon, how to let fury breathe so it lands harder. They haven’t let up; they’ve learned how to aim.
