Sparta announce a UK and European tour this October celebrating their sixth LP ‘Cut A Silhouette’, out May 29 via Equal Vision/Dine Alone
Sparta are not a band content to leave impressions by accident. The El Paso, Texas alt-rock outfit, led by guitarist and frontman Jim Ward, a former pillar of At the Drive-In, have announced a UK and European tour this October in support of their sixth studio album, “Cut A Silhouette,” due May 29 via Equal Vision Records and Dine Alone. The run kicks off in Dublin on October 4 and stretches across sixteen dates before closing in Kortrijk, Belgium on October 22, making it one of the band’s most ambitious overseas campaigns in years.
The album itself arrives with a genuinely compelling backstory. Ward has explained that the title came from a Macaulay Culkin quote in an Amazon Prime documentary about the late comedian John Candy. Culkin described Candy’s presence as something that entered your brain and cut a silhouette. Ward heard it and immediately knew that was the record he was trying to make. The phrase captured exactly what he wanted this music to do, leave a mark, stay behind, resist being forgotten.
A Love Record Built in Seven Days
“Cut A Silhouette” was produced, engineered, and recorded in a concentrated seven-day session at Magpie Cage Recording Studio in Baltimore by J. Robbins, the Jawbox founder whose production fingerprints have shaped some of post-hardcore’s most important records.
For Ward, working with Robbins was as personal as it was professional. “When I was 15, he was the center of my musical world,” Ward told Revolver. “So who better for me to want to impress than my literal hero?” Robbins does not only sit behind the glass on the record; he performs on several tracks alongside a cast of collaborators that includes My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero (who co-wrote both “Crater” and “Mouthbreather”), Chevelle’s Kemble Walters, Carlos Arévalo of Chicano Batman, and Brooks Harlan of Jawbox and War on Women.
Ward has described the record plainly and without apology: “This is a love record. I want it to leave an impression, and at this point in my career, that’s what I yearn for.” He has also been candid that “Cut A Silhouette” represents a creative reset from the inside out, calling it the moment the band finally felt like a band again alongside bassist Matt Miller and drummer Neil Hennessey. “All three of us are in a room, we’re all writing together, we’re listening to each other,” Ward said. “This feels like we’re a fucking band again.”
The October UK and European Dates
Speaking on the upcoming run, Ward offered the kind of unvarnished enthusiasm that makes it easy to remember why bands like Sparta exist in the first place. “There is no better feeling than hopping on a plane to cross an ocean to play music,” he said. “The gift of travel, friends, sweat and rock and roll is one that I’ll be forever grateful for. This new record is a special one; it’s something you can’t plan for, but when the stars align, and the songs come together, you’ve got to just go, go, go.”
The ten-track album has already been previewed by two singles: “Crater,” which arrived alongside a Travis Shinn-directed music video and quickly drew attention for its Frank Iero collaboration, and the more recently released “Everything You Say.” The full European run, which takes in Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, London, Paris, Cologne, Berlin, and Hamburg alongside multiple other cities, represents Sparta’s most sustained return to these markets since their renewed activity following a 2017 reunion. Tickets are on sale now.
