Nothing Hurts

Male Bonding's songs are fast, noisy, and full of hooks, a combination that might remind you of any number of things: Nirvana-era fuzz-pedal stompers, 1990s American indie rockers, Hüsker Dü and Dinosaur Jr. followers, not-quite-shoegazer English bands. Like a lot of those acts-- and like their contemporaries in No Age and Abe Vigoda-- Male Bonding started out making more abrasive music. Two of the three members used to be in the noise-pop band PRE, and the rich London scene they're coming out of-- a loose collective of bands with more of a common spirit than a common sound-- is full of scratchy post-punk, lo-fi fuzz, and hints of classic labels like Teenbeat, K, and Flying Nun. These are the kind s of foundational sounds that indie rock often turns back to when it needs to clear its head. But with Male Bonding, part of the treat is hearing them jump out of that and find room in the wide-open field where amped-up, rangy punk stuff collides with tuneful slacker pop. (Early on, they covered both Black Flag and Blur.) No surprise that they've wound up signed to Sub Pop, a label that built part of its reputation on that sound.

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It seems like Male Bonding has taken a novel approach to reinventing punk pop: Go back to the basics and look to the classics for inspiration. Sure, the band’s feedbacky, crackling lo-fi suggests that Male Bonding’s bros-in-arms would be No Age and Japandroids, but it’s probably with old-school heavyweights like the Buzzcocks and Superchunk that the young British three-piece shares the most in common. Bashed up and blissed out, Male Bonding’s impatient, hot-and-bothered pop is like a call to attention for a new generation of orgasm addicts and slack motherfu**ers, at once reminiscent of what came before it, though not so indebted that there isn’t some new underground experimentation going on here.

Full Review | More Reviews from Publication | Top Rated of 2010