Sparks the Rescue and Broadwing

Hailing from Portland, Maine, hardly a place known for its rich history of rock music, Sparks the Rescue have nevertheless gotten plenty done - and made quite the name for themselves - in the nine years that they’ve been together so far; after moving away from the early post-hardcore sound that they found themselves flirting with - something of a hangover from the bands that the various members had found themselves playing in in the lead up to the formation of Sparks the Rescue - they’ve moved towards a more straightforward alternative rock palette, flecked with influence from pop punk, too; it’s perhaps the direct nature of that latter style that’s led them to focus heavily on quickfire EP releases down the years, with five of those as compared to only two full-length albums and, indeed, two in the last three years. The most recent of those, Truth Inside the Fiction, feature eight tracks, but still comes in at under twenty seven minutes in duration; their recent tour in support of it certainly fit with that ethos, too, with the pace never waning and the short, sharp shocks of pop punk coming thick and fast; they’re overdue a return to the UK, though, so look out for dates soon.