Male Bonding – Nothing Hurts
There is an awful lot of Stone Roses, and even a spot of Inspiral Carpets in here, although the overall effect is still overwhelmingly noisy and garagey, rather than all that Madchester. There is still, however, a hint of an answer to the hypothetical question of what those bands might sound like if they grew a big, hairy set of balls, smothered them in honey and dipped them in a wasps’ nest.
And apparently, this is them sounding all polished. I was talking to Anthony from God Don’t Like It recently and he said that their early songs were faster, angrier and more ragged than any of this stuff.
So you know what I am about to say, don’t you? That this is rough, rowdy and fantastic and that it great to listen to music played with some fucking aggression for a change. It seems somewhat contradictory, then, to say that I actually think songs like Franklin and Worse to Come are two of the most important songs on the album, because they are a lot less raucous than their neighbours. What they do though, is provide a bit of a cushion.
Albums which are just bash bash bash yell yell yell all the way through can get pretty boring, but for a band whose obvious signature is the boisterous venom with which they end up barging their way through their songs they’ve done a pretty neat job of changing things up from time to time. This means that they rarely overdo things, and also that when those riffs hit they do so with real impact.
In short, despite a couple of minor moments where the momentum stutters slightly, this is a genuinely enjoyable, ear-to-ear-grin sort of album.
Male Bonding – Crooked Scene
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huh…. not bad! You know I like my aggro to be melodic and this is quite so. I’m curious as to what made you pick it out of your pile of submissions? I agree it’s good and I’d go see them if/when they came to Chicago. I’d also say I’ve heard a lot like this lately too. But then, that’s never stopped me from writing about a band
That first song is majorly awesome, especially on the second listen.
I’m glad you said that about pacing in an album. It amazes me how many albums I get that don’t seem to be very well thought out. As if we won’t actually sit and listen to them IN ORDER. Uh, some of us still do! xoxo
Yoo hoo Tarticles!
I think a lot of bands simply don’t think in album terms when writing the songs, which might make it harder to smoosh them all together into a single coherent entity after the fact.
If you only have a bunch of loud songs, what do you do? Write a quiet one you wouldn’t normally have written just to break up the album a bit. Mind you, if all your songs have the same pace and feel then you have a problem to begin with I guess.
In terms of picking this one out, well I guess the (early) association with Tough Love Records helped, as did the fact that I liked Year’s Not Long from the first time the publicity person sent it to me, so I was positively disposed from the beginning.
Also, got stuck with it on the iPod for a bit, which always helps things sink it a bit more.
Crikey that’s good, it’s like a bucketful of Manchester, I hope for the bands sake that the Buzzcocks don’t have lawyers.
I don’t hear any Manchester in this record at all. It’s all west coast stateside to my ears. Like a mix of all your favourite early 90s Sub Pop bands being salaciously seduced by The Beach Boys. In the bum.
Love this record.
” Like a mix of all your favourite early 90s Sub Pop bands being salaciously seduced by The Beach Boys. In the bum.”
phil, you should write liner notes for everyone, everywhere.
I too struggle to hear any Manchester in this at all….. maybe that stuff was all just before my time
Listen to the start of Franklin, before the guitars properly kick in – it could be lifted straight from a Stone Roses album.
I heard Manchester in the reverby Ian Browny vocals on the second one.
Didn’t like it much though, have to be honest.
Like the two mp3s you posted, also like what I’m hearing on the myspace page…so when I go into town shortly I’m going to see if I can’t get my hands on a copy.
Good sales pitch, Mr. Toad
i kinda like this, the vocals are shite however…..the music is pretty good tho…..and i agree with Phil….early 90 alternative tastic…..moments of the shite vocals aside i cant here any manchester at all.
Dear oh dear people. The vocals have a lot of Ian Brown in them, and the waver of the songs quite frequently drifts between the Inspiral Carpets and the Stone Roses. It’s really, really obvious.
I think I can see the Manchester in Franklin, the production is what’s deceiving me though. Stone Roses never sounded that fuzzy and fucked up, and maybe that’s what’s confusing people? I’m not really sure. It’s good anyway.
Yeah Franklin is so much like Ian Brown it is unreal, you know, if Ian Brown wasn’t shit. The whole composition and dreaminess of the whole thing just screams Manchester. However, t is all a matter of opinion, perhaps a lot of folk take different things from the whole Manchester scene than Matthew, Dylan and I do.
Naw, I see the Manchester thing, it’s the raw jangly guitar with sharp edges thing in the foreground (for me) and the Beach Boys too with the drums being all booming and hollow like. But the production, see that’s where it gets truly misshapen and reminds me of Surfer Blood or even Phil and the Osphers if we really want to have a row on this here blog
… but maybe I’ve been listening to way too many demos and this seems normal to my ears, I’ll grant ya that. Still love it tho, regardless of what Tom thinks is shite, xo
i’m liking the music side of it tarty tart!
just cos some one shite singer puts reverb on their vocals doesn’t make it stone roses-esq!
Yes I know that Chutters. But when they sing like Ian Brown it does. So many bands put reverb on their vocals, I don’t compare them all to the Stone Roses. I do hear the Surfer Blood similarities but why would I compare them to a band that Male Bonding actually pre-dates?! However, I think we actually agree Tart. I think it has the foundations of the whole Manchester sound but then takes it off in a whole different direction. Like John Squire’s skeleton dressed up in trendy clothes and boat shoes.
“I think it has the foundations of the whole Manchester sound but then takes it off in a whole different direction. Like John Squire’s skeleton dressed up in trendy clothes and boat shoes.”
What he said.
arse batter
Honestly you whipper snappers , Steve Diggle is all over this
I guess people just relate new music to older music that they are very familiar with, and subconsciously use it as some sort of reference point.
Personally, I don’t see an ounce of Manchester anywhere near this.
A near-brilliant record by a potentially brilliant band, either way. There’s not a single track on this record I want to skip. Not bad for 13 songs.
I believe they are playing with the brilliant No Age and a superb new Glasgow 3-piece called Paws in Glasgow, in early October. Go see them. That gig has “jizz-worthy” written all over it.
Ohhh I was just gonna cry that you guys get all the good gigs when I happened to peek at their MySpace and see they were playing our Metro with Titus Andronicus, Best Coast, and Free Energy on Sept. 18 (tickets on sale this Saturday) heh.
have I mentioned lately that I love Chicago <3
Neither of those are bad lineups at all.
If you don’t think that singer sounds like Ian Brown, you’re deaf or you’ve never heard Ian Brown.
Still don’t like it much.
Fuck sake. They’re clearly steeped in the Manchester, New Hampshire sound. A bit like a cross between the Beatles, Mozart, Miles Davis, and Elvis Presley, with a clever little Def Leppard/Eminem vibe thrown in.
Sound a bit like the Arcade Fire, then?
On reflection, this is a fucking cracking album.