When most people suggest a band has returned to form, in many cases, said band never really lost it. This is certainly the case with Sparta. While certain moments have captured the imagination more than others, all told, it’s been a solid reign.
For the most part, the El Paso, TX band – founded by Paul Hinojos and Tony Hajjar – have unfairly lived in the shadows of At the Drive-In, not to mention the constant comparisons following the band’s demise as Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s went on to form The Mars Volta.
In truth, all three projects are complete contrasts, maintaining their own identities over the years. And while Hinojos and Hajjar are no longer in Sparta (the former also having a stint The Marts Volta), Jim Ward has, and continues to be, the band’s shining beacon.
Since the weeks following the release of their sixth LP, Cut A Silhouette, it’s hard to fathom Sparta’s Threes turning 20 earlier this year. It reaffirms the band’s integral part in so many people’s lives. With their own strain of post-hardcore, Sparta have always felt like a real concern. A band for the devoted few where if you get it you get it.
Ward’s songs have always hit with unvarnished, emotional force and working-class grit. On Cut A Silhouette, Ward – once again backed by bassist, Matt Miller, and joined by drummer, Neil Hennessy – is as candid as he’s ever been.
Cut A Silhouette is an album that is of coming of age. Ward, looking back at his past and wrestling with demons (Split Lip, Crater), coming out on the other side with content (Midnights). Their 2022 self-titled LP took the same path, but on Cut A Silhouette, Sparta reach the end of it.
Sparta - Cut A SilhouetteSonically, on Cut A Silhouette, Sparta pack one of their biggest punches. Mouthbreather, the kind of song that made you fall in love with the band in the first place. Like Mystery of Missing, both tracks are sleepers in their own right. In the latter’s case, Ward delivers a song so refined, that it will arguably go on to be one of the band’s finest songs.
Elsewhere, the melodic hum of Daydream is all chiming guitars and Hennessy’s galloping drums, resulting in is something that could have featured on Porcelain. Thematically, it aligns with Sparta’s road to content – relationships, underpinning much of Cut A Silhouette. The sunroof sway of See You Soon, a love song that echoes Ward’s Quiet EP (“I’m here but I’m not / The words fail me/ But they’re all that I’ve got”). And in fact, closing cut, Glimmer, could have been on it. Stripped-back roadhouse blues, as Ward flexes his admiration for alt-country.
Both songs are nice pivots from the raucous bursts of indie-rock and post-hardcore. Everything You Say, a song tailor-made for the fault-lines where Ward’s vocals haven’t sounded better. The song rolls seamlessly into Without Your Hands. A post-hardcore endorphin rush with a chorus that cuts you in half. (“Without your hands holding up my head / I’m feeling lost in everything you said”.)
Post-hardcore has always possessed a youthful energy, but Sparta have moved through the decades without ever outgrowing it or themselves. They’ve always possessed the self-awareness to realise that reality dwarfs aesthetic. “I want to feel everything,” confesses Ward on the swooning Midnights. It’s the kind of confession you make in your forties when you are at your most carefree, when the shackles are off. And in these moments, some of the best art can made, which is what Sparta achieve on Cut A Silhouette.
Cut A Silhouette is out now via Rude Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.
