Blur vs. Oasis. Batman vs. The Joker. Guns ‘n Roses vs. Music. Some battles seem as old as time itself. And so it is that Oxford has its own Trojan epic, the tedious exchange of verbal mud pies between Jay ‘Rival’ and Joe of Spiral 25 that never fails to remind me of two children splashing water in each others’ eyes in the bath.
Inter-band warfare aside, you may have forgotten that Secret Rivals occasionally make music too. Indeed, I have before me a two track demo of theirs entitled Break Song/Get Famous, six minutes of frantic pop-punk that sounds like The Buzzcocks at a sherbet-snorting party. That said, Break Song is a pretty inauspicious start. It showcases the band’s style well, but doesn’t offer anything to really get your teeth into. The main guitar riff isn’t bad but the song is scuppered by the clumsy boy-girl vocal duet, and despite lasting only two and a half minutes the over-zealous use of the line “It’s not healthy, it’s not, it’s not ” makes the whole affair feel repetitive and lacking in ideas.
It’s Get Famous where the band really come into their own. With an intro that brings to mind Godzilla stomping all over Tokyo, the Rivals charge along at the speed of a hummingbird’s heartbeat. The raw energy of the Clouds/Jay vocal exchanges feel much more at home amongst Get Famous’s squealing guitars and bombardiering drums. Despite this, a little more finesse in the vocal delivery would really add something to the band’s repertoire; too often melody gives way to shouting, and neither singer has a sufficiently powerful voice to carry this off convincingly.
All in all, this is a decent showing from Secret Rivals. There’s enough in Get Famous to persuade me that the band are moving forwards with their sound, but they’ve still got some way to go before they’re the finished product.
Let the mudslinging begin!