Sparta
Cut A Silhouette
Equal Vision / Rude Records
There’s a lot to be said for bands returning to the source to remember the sparks that ignited their fire in the first place. However, Sparta is a band that never looks behind them, and the idea of living off their hugely significant past glories is anathema to them. Ask Jim Ward anything related to his previous musical output, and he simply says he was on some records people enjoyed, which, given his history, is the understatement of the decade! Instead, Sparta prefers to draw on their accumulated knowledge and write with specific feelings and emotions they associate with music. To achieve this, they deliberately eschewed their previous major-label trappings to record the album in just seven days with the legendary US hardcore punk producer J Robbins. You can hear this as soon as they come out of the starting blocks with the triple post hardcore hits of ‘Split Lip’, ‘Crater’ and ‘Mouthbreather’. The latter two tracks were co-written with Frank Iero (Is it a legal requirement in post hardcore to have Frank involved in your release in some way these days?) Apparently, the very good reason he isn’t actually playing on these songs is the minor inconvenience of the giant LA wildfires of 2024, which separated him from the band. However, from the fourth song onward, Sparta go on a far broader tour of their personal musical tastes. ‘Daydream’ sounds like the result of Foo Fighters writing with Elton John, and on the twinkling Americana of ‘See You Soon’, they deliver a sentimental ballad perfect for any romantic comedy. ‘Everything You Say’ pulls on Jim Ward’s love of early, pre ‘Joshua Tree’, U2 (you forget that U2 were originally a post-punk band). Sparta returns to the more direct approach of their opening salvo with the anthemic, ‘Without Your Hands,’ and this is a fleeting callback, and they return to the gentle fade out of ‘Glimmer’ to wave us goodbye. What is massively apparent on ‘Cut A Silhouette’ is that this is a band that makes the music they want to make with nary a fuck given as to whether you get it or not. Raging to delicate, classic rock to post hardcore critically, there’s 100% conviction and passion in this record. Does it actually “cut a silhouette,” though? This was a phrase used by Macaulay Culkin to describe the impression that John Candy left when he entered your life. Well, Sparta has certainly left an impression on us and a warm smile on our faces, so we guess in a way they did.
https://www.facebook.com/spartatheband
Review By George Miller