Male Bonding
Nothing Hurts

In the 2.0 years, there are no more limits in any perceptual field, and music is no exception. Big melting pots, no boundaries. New Wave, Garage, Pop, Psychedelia, Post Punk, Electronica, all musical forms reduced to a simple idea. That's how it works, after all, an idea is definitely more malleable than musical matter when resources are scarce.

Male Bonding are one of the many sublimations of this concept, taken to the extremes. Immediately covered by a layer of hype (the cool one, always 2.0, that covers only the less artistically inclined and more cool/Do it yourself artists) unjustified, as they are potentially similar to many other realities deriving from the eternal exchange between Great Britain and the United States. However, by analyzing this ramshackle trio a bit more deeply, it's easy to realize that many praises can find their match in the empathetic grooves of this "Nothing Hurts".

You can find everything here: jangly guitars ("Weird Feelings"), walls of fuzz ("Years Not Long"), Garage relentlessness ("T.U.F.F."), Punk melodic attitude ("Crooked Scene") and an approach - just as expected, one might say - slacker. And, most importantly, they know how to write Pop music with remarkable taste and uniformity.

They may not be the new Nirvana, as bizarrely heard around, but there is the right intensity here and the cohesion of those who knew how to enclose great things in small boxes (heart-shaped). And, more importantly, this half-hour made me feel good. In this vicious post-MySpace whirlwind, that's rare.