Hardly the most obvious of song subjects, but then New York's Modern Rivals aren't exactly your most obvious dream pop five-piece. Granted, as with many it's a dangerous genre: indulge your pop tastebuds unduly and you risk falling down the old Passion Pit. Perfect the art of idiosyncratically teetering upon the brink however and these forms of lowly accolade, perhaps a spot on a slightly leftfield sitcom soundtrack and all that good stuff may be yours. Indubitably all this and more could feasibly be afforded Modern Rivals: Defenestrate You emerges amid a flurry of neo-classical splendour, only to swiftly be inundated with a deluge of Avey Tare-esque skitter and "ooh's" to make Chris Keating turn a violent hue of Madder Red, before eventually sinking under the weight of its own oddness.
Clocks vs. Darts, meanwhile, plays off a jovial, choppy piano refrain refracted through polite wavelets of aqueous guitar and boasts one heck of a melody around the midpoint. It may be all too easy to pinpoint every one of their contemporary adversaries but in many respects Modern Rivals better most.
