In the press pack for Cut A Silhouette, Jim Ward says two things that seem to form the key to this album.
First, he reckons that, at this stage in his career, he wants to make an album that makes an impression on people. You could argue that he has already done that as a founder member of At The Drive-In and across the quarter of a century he has spent piloting Sparta, but clearly he is eager for more.
Second, he is thrilled that this album was produced by J. Robbins, the punk-turned-producer whom Ward describes as “my actual hero”.
Surely that speaks to how steeped Ward still is in music, and how much enjoyment he continues to get from it. More importantly, that love is written right through these 10 songs.
Straight away, “Split Lip” is American punk rock. No preamble, no messing about, just straight in. “100 days is not enough,” sings Ward, and that, of course, is the time they reckon an incoming president has to change things. Ward making his changes early, then? Sort of.
“Crater” moves closer to Sparta’s signature post-hardcore sound, but there is a real sense of emotion in the angular guitars. This is not just tension for tension’s sake. There is melody, depth and craft here too, and when “Mouthbreather” stretches out towards the five-minute mark, the result is almost hypnotic.
Both “Mouthbreather” and “Crater” were written with My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero, and that sense of collaboration adds something without ever overwhelming what Sparta are. The melody really comes through on “Daydream”, but so does the energy.
The slower moments work especially well. “See You Soon” drops the pace and almost becomes a summer pop anthem, while “Everything You Say” lives and dies on its hook — and absolutely lives. There is so much skill in the way these songs are constructed, but it never feels laboured.
There are rabble-rousers too. “Without Your Hands” is the sort of thing The Gaslight Anthem would go gold with, and its repeated line, “looking back it’s never been enough,” seems to hit on the overall agitation of the album. There is a restlessness here, a sense that Ward is still searching, still pushing, still not quite satisfied.
That is part of what makes Cut A Silhouette so compelling. “Midnights” shows that the ballads provide real texture, but it is the ambition of the riffs on work like “Mystery Of Missing” that surprises most. Mid-period U2 filled stadiums on less.
And the change of pace continues right to the end. “Before you, music seemed meaningless,” sings Ward on “Glimmer”, and it is a lovely, light moment to finish on. After everything else here — the urgency, the emotion, the bite — it feels like the right kind of exhale.
These days completed by bassist Matt Miller and drummer Neil Hennessy, Sparta feels like a band again, according to Ward. Back on an indie label, back making albums on the hoof — this one took just a week — but crucially sounding like they are back in love with the music again.
Cut A Silhouette leaves quite the mark, and it is the best Sparta record in a very long time.
RATING: 8.5/10
