Los Angeles-based outsider artists Sprain play downer music at cacophonous volumes. Their new album, As Lost Through Collision, unfurls threads of spidery '90s rock (think Unwound, Duster, Slint, etc.) and is a complex and cathartic exercise in tension and restraint. Formed in L.A. in early 2018 by Alex Kent and April Gerloff, Sprain's initial home-recorded forays into minimalistic slowcore resulted in their self-titled EP (2018) that distinguished them from the lo-fi pack through visceral expressions of depressed life. Soon, guitarist Alex Simmons and drummer Max Pretzer joined, folding tumultuous noise rock, drone, and flirtations with the avant-garde into the band's arsenal. Touring converged these explorations into Sprain's current sound: pure 21st century panic strained through a wall of piercing, feedbacking guitar amps. Written at home and refined on the road, these five new tracks are parts monolithic and minimalist, manic and mellow. Engineered by Josiah Mazzaschi at The Cave (Built to Spill, The Jesus and Mary Chain) and mixed by Tim Green at Louder Studios (The Melvins, Lungfish, Jawbreaker), the music here retains it's organic purity and captures the band in it's truest state. While the noticeable persuasion from '90s post hardcore and noise rock is palpable, this release takes cues from 20th century avant-classical such as Xenakis and Penderecki. The end result is freewheeling and urgent, dynamic and destructive, and Sprain is marked by an aggressive versatility that has been sorely lacking in recent guitar music.

As described in our Privacy Policy, we collect personal information from your interactions with us and our website, including through cookies and similar technologies. We may also share this personal information with third parties, including advertising partners. We do this in order to show you ads on other websites that are more relevant to your interests and for other reasons outlined in our privacy policy.

Sharing of personal information for targeted advertising based on your interaction on different websites may be considered "sales", "sharing", or "targeted advertising" under certain U.S. state privacy laws. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to opt out of these activities. If you would like to exercise this opt-out right, please follow the instructions below.

If you visit our website with the Global Privacy Control opt-out preference signal enabled, depending on where you are, we will treat this as a request to opt-out of activity that may be considered a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information or other uses that may be considered targeted advertising for the device and browser you used to visit our website.