Male Bonding - Nothing Hurts (Sub Pop)
4/5
By: Dan Monsell
Male Bonding - the little band that could. A Dalson trio who make up the capital's finest warehouse-party band, hunched over a couple of mics and kicking out the jams better than the others, this debut admirably marks the band out from a British indie scene driven by all things underground and lofi.
Nothing Hurts, released by Sub Pop - the legendary label that gleaned out at the band from their record collections and shelves of the record stores in which they work - is a triumph. A fun, un-pretentious yet happily snarly and attitude-filled barrage of punk-pop, indebted to the glorious grunge youth years of this generation, clocking in at a whiplash of a rush at just under thirty minutes. The record screams of a celebration of a golden age of when bands could satisfy their pizza-joint sense of fun and their brains making leftfield guitar pop, somehow still selling a shed load of records along the way.
No nostalgia trip this though, and whilst it may peter out a little in strength as the record gets to the end, the likes of ‘Tuff’ sees drummer supreme Robin Silas (formerly of the mighty Shoe!) cut loose and take them into proggier territories; elsewhere ‘Franklin’ and ‘Pirate Key’ are new-school tropical rock punk tracks to surf through the recession to.
However, it's early Nirvana-type anthemic gems like ‘All Things Your Way’ and ‘Your Contact’ that resonate the loudest. One that gets better with repeat spins, and a great introduction to a treasure chest in the capital's sand.
Artists in this article: Male Bonding
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