Nothing Hurts
Riding the wave of current noise-pop bands who arm themselves with layers of distortion and eke out shy, buried melodies, British trio Male Bonding mix it up with a varied palette: brightly colored stomp-fests (“Weird Feelings”), moody, love-struck swooners (“Franklin,” “Nothing Remains”), muscular, prog-nodding guitar attacks (“T.U.F.F.”) and airy acoustic numbers (“Worse to Come,” with the Vivian Girls on board) bring this debut to some rather lofty heights. These guys know their indie rock, and there are hints of everything from Pavement to Hüsker Dü to the Wedding Present here, with a refreshing insistence on defining their guitar sound with sharp hooks, clear melodies and an exuberant, punk-rooted energy. There is not a wasted track on *Nothing Hurts*, and we venture to say that “All Things This Way” “Paradise Vendors” and “Nothing Used to Hurt” are mind-bendingly perfect slices of modern, post-punk perfection, and place Male Bonding in a class of their own.
Male Bonding's full-length debut cleans up the sound of their ultra lo-fi early singles but the music is still fast, noisy, and full of hooks.
It’s hard not to gravitate toward "Worse To Come," the final track of Male Bonding's debut, Nothing Hurts. In the song, the band’s former tourmates and kindred spirits, Vivian Girls, harmonize angelically behind frontman John Arthur Webb. It’s a slab of shimmering, scuffed, acoustic punk that calls to mind the…
Despite, or perhaps because of, the macho implications of the band's name, Male Bonding display a unique mix of vulnerability and toughness on their debut album, Nothing Hurts.
Male Bonding is definitely not the first band to crank out waterlogged surf-garage jams in minute-and-a-half morsels.
Guitars that sound like they are playing themselves? Count <strong>Michael Hann</strong> in for some Male Bonding