BY Chandler Levack September 24, 2008 13:09
These Hamilton garage-revival rockers used to be called Ride Theory, keeping the long manes and mod wardrobes that saw them dubbed the Steel City Kinks. While bass-driven chug-a-longs and three-chord melodies guide Young Rival’s addictive six-song EP, tracks like “Your Island” and the coolly distanced “4:15” are as anthemic as The Monkees. Flushed with the exuberance of youth, the band shimmy out disaffected poetry (“Oh summer, where’d you go?”) made for keeping time with the beat of your Converse sneaks. While they insist on “Another Nobody” that “we don’t want to cut nobody down,” sometimes it seems like these rebels need something to rail against. Still, for all the band’s ’60s leanings, it never quite feels like they’re posturing.