MALE BONDING/COLD PUMAS – Split Single (7″, Faux Discx)
Posted: September 12th, 2009, by JGRAMWith screwy sounding surf guitars and vocals delivered in the style of a teenage Mark E. Smith the relentless brawl of Male Bonding is a fun step back to the lo-fi scene of the late nineties that felt capable of taking on all comers using instruments akin to items made from cereal boxes. In a world that sometimes appreciates raucous, loud and distorted guitar explosions when soughting a pay off, this is the stuff of kings.
The comparison that immediately springs to mind when considering Male Bonding is The Yummy Fur crossed with an aggressive Vampire Weekend; I think they might more appreciate a nod towards the No Age element of their stylings. Regardless any band that states that the Drowned In Sound forum is “like an indie British National Party” (as in Loud And Quiet magazine) cannot be all bad even if the jibe just stretch Mick Hucknall.
On the flipside Cold Pumas provide something altogether more atonal. Caked in white noise with machine drums straight from the nearest factory pounding its way to dysfunction, piercing shards of jagged guitar then arrive and enter the mix as a device to confront. These people playing on this record are not men, they are a well oiled machine pumping out sounds in a most efficient fashion on a production line of noise with the sole purpose and intent of putting the listener at ill ease and to make them move (convulse) involuntarily. Health never sounded this good.
Thesaurus moment: noisome.
JGRAM
JGram, friend of the stars, chartered accountant and pie enthusiast, likes nothing better than KICKING YOUR SKINNY ASS by way of a carefully-timed half-nelson followed by the CLOTHES LINE! OW! So never, never cross him. His dog Snowy is equally rockhard and will bite your lim bs off in the blink of an eye. And then paw your eyes out for blinking when he's biting you.