I listened to the 6 track EP Sabrina from The Thing About Rivals a lot over the past couple of days. My Last.FM page has me clocked in at 53 listens and that’s not counting how many times I listened to them in my car and on my iPod while I preformed menial tasks like lawn mowing and sitting back on my couch relaxing. Unfortunately I think I listened so many times because I just couldn’t get into the music and just didn’t know why. Giving the album a couple more go rounds today I finally put my finger on it.

Sabrina has a run time of twenty six minutes and twenty seven seconds. Keep that in mind. As I mulled over the EP today it finally dawned on me, well I had already come to this conclusion but argued with myself that I was just hearing things, that the first four tracks on the album (that’s over seventeen minutes of the album) share a very similar, if not identical, guitar construct. Sometimes its subtle, sometimes it takes up the entirety of the track, and sometimes its just in the chorus, but its the same few chords being played. The first time I heard the album I couldn’t get the theme song to Kids In The Hall out of my head and thought that, that must have been the problem, but honestly those first four tracks were doing a battle with repetitiousness in my ears. Their great tracks overall, but that guitar work needs some spice. Vocals are fine, drums are decent, and bass is subtle but good. What’s left after the struggle against monotony of the first four songs is a meager seven minutes of enjoyment without hearing that guitar work. I’ve read that plenty of people love the EP, which you can sample or buy at the bands band camp page (I encourage you to discover the band on your own), but for me it sounded like the band just wasn't quite there, and with the indie scene as saturated as it is, close enough just doesn't quite cut it with me. Maybe next time. As always final judgment is yours. Enjoy.