Sparta's "Wiretap Scars" turns 20

When SPARTA's debut album "Wiretap Scars" dropped in 2002, it was easy for me to hate it right away. I was still obsessed with AT THE DRIVE-IN and my expectations for one of the two follow up-bands were sky high. I immediately liked the advanced single "Cut your Ribbon" and I still do, it's a great cut. But it also fueled my expectations in a wrong way. "Cut your Ribbon" probably is the most AT THE DRIVE-IN-ish thing on this record and that was the reason for my disappointment. 

Even said song felt like a trimmed down version of AT THE DRIVE-IN, clearly structured and forseeable. But that's the way Jim Ward wrote his songs and there was nothing wrong about it. In AT THE DRIVE-IN he probably was the balancing weight to the sheer madness of Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala and it was a match made in heaven.

It took some time and distance, but later I truly appreciated Ward's songwriting and SPARTA's "Wiretap Scars". My original feelings for the record were absurd and wrong in every kind of way. While SPARTA's first full length may be no masterpiece, it was a great effort for these guys to separate themselves from their past. The raw energy and emotion from the old days was still there, but they coupled it with a more classic songwriting-formula, radio-friendly tendencies and a sensitivity that really made that record. The brilliant "Echodyne Harmonic" caught me from the start (and for quite some time was the only "Wiretap Scars"-song to make my playlist), but "Cataract" and "Collapse" are just as good. The finale of "Cataract" might just be the most beautiful moment on the album! The remaining songs are rock-solid without a real dud, also they never long for greater territories. But again, 20 years later I more than appreciate this attitude...

That being said, I always loved Ward's voice, especially on this record. His screamed vocals are intense as hell and he was one of the best when it came to this seamless transition between screaming and singing. "Wiretap Scars" is a record where I sometimes say to myself "What the fuck were you thinking back then?". I mercilessly blame it on my dumb and militant youth ass!