The world may be burning, but at least there’s a good soundtrack to watch the ship go down to. That was partly the idea behind just-released All That Is Over, the second album by Sprints. Having established themselves as one of the finest Irish rock bands of their generation with Letter to Self, their 2024 debut, the Dublin four-piece took a different approach to its successor – partly through choice but mostly through necessity.
“Letter to Self was very much the story of our lives up to that point,” Karla Chubb, the band’s frontwoman, says over coffee in Dublin, her bandmate Jack Callan beside her. “I think it was very personal, and it was quite autobiographical. But we’ve had so many experiences in the 12 months since, particularly being on the road for the entire 12 months from January to December last year.
“And there was also the addition of Zac” – Zac Stephenson, who replaced Sprints’ founding guitarist Colm O’Reilly – “and then the chaos of trying to rejig that.” She exhales. “So this feels like a real rebirth. It invigorated us again.”
All That Is Over treads a darker path than its predecessor, as in the ferocious tumult of its opening track, Abandon, the existential Descartes, or the aching To the Bone.
RM Block
The album was written as the band toured extensively in support of their debut, forging a reputation as a formidable live proposition. Suddenly, soundchecks were an opportunity to road-test new material. The band’s label did not expect them to enter the studio again until this September, but they were eager to “keep moving”, and the prospect of yet another tour with the same set of songs was anathema.
“We never sat down and went, ‘Right, what are we doing for album two?’” Chubb says. “We were just on the road so much that the only time we had together that was free was generally when we were setting up on stage. We’re friends, we love music, so we’d naturally just start playing.
“And then in the chaos of everything, when you come home – the random one day you might have in Dublin before you set off for another three-week stint – I think the brain was constantly going and the cogs were turning, and music would just kind of fall out.
“We’ve always said that music is the way we process everything in our lives and the world. And because there was so much going on in the world and our lives, it was the only thing we could turn to.” She nods. “It’s the first thing I always turn to.”
The band learned coping mechanisms during those lengthy stints on the road last year, and some of them have found their way on to All That Is Over. Driving from city to city, they would read or play video games, often finding themselves drawn to books about dystopian fiction; Callan says Octavia E Butler’s Parable of the Sower was a big hit with his bandmates; Paul Lynch’s recent Prophet Song was similarly inspirational.
They briefly toyed with making a concept album based around Dante’s Inferno, but ultimately decided against it. The video game Fallout: New Vegas, however, provided them with a shared visual reference “that we could all point to, and go, ‘We all understand this and know this’”, with its spaghetti-western soundtrack and backdrop of a United States ravaged by nuclear war.
‘The reviews can be a little bit more critical of me, as opposed to anything about the music of the band, which is still shocking to see in 2025′
— Karla Chubb
The grim reality of the world – war, political upheaval, governments’ rowing back on trans rights – also played a part: an unsettled, sombre undertone makes its way into the music, too.
Chubb says that she was listening to a lot of ambient electronic music by artists such as Portishead, Massive Attack, Brian Eno and Aphex Twin while reading; she and Callan agree that acts such as Mannequin Pussy, Viagra Boys and Chalk, their former touring mates, were also influential in setting the tone. So, too, were the “new toys” they bought for themselves, whether a new synth or a nylon-stringed guitar.
“It’s obviously very much inspired by the world around us, the chaos,” Chubb says. “That kind of dystopian reality is the thing that we kept coming back to. It’s like there’s this beautiful, artistic bubble that we live in, juxtaposed with the war and the conflict and all the hatred and vitriol you see online. So it is a very melancholic place that we live in, because we’re having the time of our lives and the world has never been worse.”
Chubb has also experienced some personal upheaval since the band released their debut album, most notably the end of her long-term relationship, the beginning of a new one, and a sexual assault at the band’s Belfast gig in April 2024 that she spoke publicly about.
Chubb doesn’t often write about her personal life, although she admits to having had to develop a “much thicker skin” over the past year. Looking back at the assault, she says, “I kind of acknowledge that it happened, but it hasn’t really struck me that much.” She shrugs. “Obviously, the misogyny is still rife.”
She points out the multitude of comments on the band’s social-media pages, most of which are directed at her, how she looks or what she’s wearing. “And the reviews can be a little bit more critical of me, as opposed to anything about the music of the band, which is still shocking to see in 2025.
“But I do have the power and the strength to kind of laugh it off. I don’t really let it bother me. Before, it probably would have driven me into a mental crisis. At this point I screenshot them and I just laugh.”
She smiles, shrugging. “The other day, someone wrote on one of our TikTok videos, ‘Someone needs to put her in the bath.’” She laughs. “I wouldn’t mind, but my hair was freshly washed and everything! And then the next one is, like, ‘Karla, you’re so beautiful. I love you.’” She sighs, shaking her head. “God, the whiplash you’d get from this. One minute I’m queen of the world, the next minute I’m the pauper in the streets.”
Chubb has proven herself a fiery, charismatic frontwoman. She speaks about the double standards levelled at women in the industry: you have to “prove yourself a lot more” and battle through the misogynistic commentary to be accepted in a way that men in bands are not.
“It is difficult to swallow, the jealousy,” she says. “Sometimes I think, if I was a guy, would we be playing way bigger shows? Would we be selling more records? Or what would the feedback look like, the reviews, the critics, stuff like that?”
Callan gently reminds her that if she was a guy, there would be no Sprints. She cracks a smile. “It can consume you, so I think it’s super important to step away from it. And I do take breaks where I delete my apps and just get away from everything.
“But there’s nothing you can do about it besides continuing to take up that space and be vocal. So I just try and do that as often as I can.”
If Letter to Self was their story up to a certain point – certain parables that they want to remind themselves of, or perhaps certain chapters of their lives – All That Is Over is something entirely different.
“I would say it’s like a love letter to the art of music – and to the band as a whole,” Chubb says, pausing to think of how to sum up the album, its vibrant pink artwork on a vinyl record in front of them, its resilient songs within.
“It’s a new beginning, a new chapter. And I think, in All That Is Over, there is a real note of hopefulness in it. Despite all the chaos in the world, we’ve gone through so much together and we’ve still come out of it more passionate than ever.
“People are always going to try to hold back those already marginalised and push them even further to the fringes. But all we can do is stick together throughout it.”
All That Is Over is released by City Slang. Sprints play Vicar Street, Dublin, on November 20th
