Modern Rivals :: "Defenestrate You"

Modern Rivals craft the most esoteric of break-up songs on "Defenestrate You." It is an echoing and undulating ride as the chorus hits with the punch of a Calvino novel getting its sea legs: pretty, valiant and inchoate. There isn't a single hook - even the title lyric falls a bit flat - but the whole arrangement is laden with these sorts of pop trap doors where the listener finds themselves falling and pleasantly caught in an eddy of melody or silky backing vocal. The bumping guitar punches evoke something southern, though Modern Rivals are a Brooklyn band with a stupidly good debut EP. The desire to "defenestrate," quite literally to throw out of the window, to reject another or an idea completely, is old. Like the old Proustian axiom, to make the listener see the window, first you must make them believe in the wall. Then give them the power to throw their past out of both.

Listen :: Modern Rivals - "Defenestrate You"