Album Review: Male Bonding - Nothing Hurts

The phrase ‘Dalston DIY scene’ should probably provoke a feeling of dread in music fans that prefer bands to have better songs than haircuts. However, Male Bonding, a band at the head of a crop of groups that have emerged from that particular part of East London over the last couple of years, may make you cast your preconceptions aside. With Nothing Hurts, their 29 minute debut album, the band have made a record that transcends their beginnings – and all the positive and negative aspects of being part of a ‘scene’- to the extent that soon, no one will care where they came from, but where they’re going.

This is the case because not only is Nothing Hurts crammed with short, melodic, noisy pop songs, but at less than half an hour in length, the band know the simple effectiveness of the oldest trick in the book – leaving your audience wanting more. Male Bonding’s music is an amalgamation of sounds cherry-picked from, it has to be said, largely American strands of rock n roll. There are elements of surf music in their sunny melodies, grunge and its antecedents in the guitars’ noisy intensity, and even hardcore punk. Dig a little deeper, and the band’s fondness for brevity and melody, as well as a fair old dose of British pessimism in the lyrics, suggest parallels with Buzzcocks.

Typically, for anyone who’s witnessed Male Bonding’s always breakneck, often chaotic live shows, it’s full speed ahead from the off. ‘Year’s Not Long’ tells you all you need to know – John Arthur Webb’s frantic guitar playing interlocks with the nimble bass lines of Kevin Hendrick, while Robin Silas Christian’s drums propel everything on, on on. Songs slip past at a disorientating speed, to the extent that’s difficult to take in at first just who well composed they are. One thing that won’t escape you though are the melodies – these are catchy songs that have to be immediate because they’re over so quickly.

Four songs race by before there’s some kind of breather – the ‘Breed’-like riffs of ‘Weird Feelings’ collapse into ‘Franklin’, what could be considered a Male Bonding version of a ballad (quieter, but still played at a frantic rate). Things, inevitably, pick up again from there – ‘Crooked Scene’ crashes and staggers about gracefully, while ‘Nothing Remains’ finds Webb and Hendrick trading vocals.

Unusually for any album, never mind a debut, Nothing Hurts arguably peaks towards the end – its last five tracks are particularly strong, from the blistering regret of ‘Nothing Used To Hurt’ to the instantly memorable refrain of ‘I see myself in colour/I see myself in light’ on ‘Pirate Key’. The final two tracks, however, lay out the two sides to Male Bonding – ‘Pumpkin’, a long term live favourite, tears through hook after hook, lodging itself in your brain in the process, and is followed by ‘Worse To Come’. With Vivian Girls providing vocal accompaniment, it’s just Webb and his acoustic guitar – ‘There’s nothing worse than this’, he sings, before the noise erupts and fades, to leave him own again.

Placed at the end of the album, ‘Worse To Come’ puts the rest of ‘Nothing Hurts’ in a different light (you may find yourself pushing play again as soon as the last track comes to a close, anyway). It’ll certainly be a couple of listens before you notice the downbeat lyrics that hint towards this being a break up album, though of the most idiosyncratic variety. But all that’s waiting – ‘Nothing Hurts’ is one of the most immediately thrilling and consistently rewarding debuts by a British band in years.