Unlike some similar releases by obscure, two-singles-on-a-small label punk bands from suburbia (Satan’s Rats and The Plague spring to mind), this really is a gold-in-them-there-three-chords find. From Thanet, The Rivals’ only real claims to fame were that they once featured a young Paul Daley (later of Leftfield) on drums and inspired their number one fan Roi Pearce to form his own band, The Last Resort.
Their second single in 1980, a cover of Them’s Here Comes the Night, made Single Of The week in Record Mirror. Played by Paul Burnett and Mike Read, as well as Peel, if it wasn’t for a botched distribution deal it would have been a bona fide hit, sounding as it did like The Vapors in steel toecaps. An earlier single, Future Rights, was sneering punk-pop-bynumbers with talk of revolution, abortions and religion. A senseless rant (Flowers) and gratuitous swear-a-thon (Bastard Blues) are thoroughly enjoyable, but much of the material demoed and polished up here is far superior.
With a sound somewhere between a mod-influenced guitar assault of early Jam, Generation X and The Carpettes, The Rivals really should have been contenders. Bin Liners’ best release to date.
