Label: Equal Vision
Producer: J. Robbins
Release Year: 2026
Listen: Spotify / Apple Music
I’m honestly not sure what’s going on with album cover, but I really dig it. Something about the pop of brilliant color on a starfield and font choices says, “Hey, you should listen to this record!” So why not listen to my eyes and brain and do what I’m told? It’s not as if I don’t have a history with Sparta, of course, but if you’d asked me two weeks ago if I thought they were still putting our records, I might have been 50/50, leaning no. Seeing as their debut dropped in 2002, and my last interaction with them was reviewing their fourth album, Trust the River, in 2020. A year that seems like it was a lifetime ago. Back before post-hardcore became the new Gen Z love language. Though I have yet to see any of the new crop of post-hardcorians namecheck Sparta as an influence, despite their long-standing, underground pedigree.
So, why Sparta in 2026? Well, first, in the At The Drive-In split, I tend to lean way more Sparta than Mars Volta. There’s nothing wrong with prog rock per se, but I’m way more of a rock traditionalist and appreciate the melodic, more standard song structure of Sparta. This particular record starts off sounding a bit like an Against Me jam. Which makes sense. But then we go into the second track, “Crater,” and I thought perhaps I hit the shuffle button and Apple Music dialed up a Queens of the Stone Age tune. The one QotSA songs I’m actually familiar with, that is. It devolves into the exact prog thing that I claimed to not be their thing a few sentences ago. And I hate to be made to look like a fool! But, hey, in comes the third tune, “Mouthbreather,” and they’re suddenly Interpol. Which I’m actually pretty cool with. But we already have that post-punk stuff over on our other, more smoothed-out channel. Again, I’m not complaining, but I’m also lying to myself if I thought that this group of 50 year olds were going to tear my face off. Nope, they’ve apparently both shrunk and grown their ambitions over the past 25 years. There is way less urgency and aggression and way more weariness. But also clear ambition to be more than a scrappy rock band and create something more timeless and pop-laden. I can’t fault them for wanting to put an expanded sound out there and not repeat what they created as younger men, but it doesn’t mean my tastes have matured at the same level as their artistry or ambition. It’s probably why I tend to go back to most long-standing bands’ first couple of records in their oeuvre more often than not. Back when they’re generally more bratty and less interested in making art. Or throwing in a random mellotron or EBow or whatever.
Ultimately, this is a fine record. But, for me, it just kind of sits there. There is something about Jim Ward’s voice, for instance, that feels weirdly like some old hard rock dude from the 80s trying to make a modern record, but still sounding at his quieter times a bit like a dude who should be singing about the kids smoking in the bathroom — or whatever 80s rock is about. It’s not really something I can explain without you hearing it, but maybe it’s something in J. Robbins’ clean production that puts Ward’s vocals front and center, and in doing so exposes the weakness of some of his lyric writing that can come off as pretty cheesy and cliched. Which, if I recall, was a hallmark of 80s rock music. I’m just unsure if Ward wants to be Bono or Chris Martin, or if he’s just a guy who matured into them. There’s nothing here that is bad by any means (and a couple things that are cool), but the post-hardcore crown is safe for now as the older generation moves toward our antiquated ideas of FM rock ‘n’ roll, and the newer bands go the other direction, expanding on the sound in new, exciting ways.
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