Male Bonding - Eat Skull - split - 7

Labels: Tough Love
Review by: Andy Malcolm

I was more than a little disappointed with Male Bonding’s stuff on the split with Pens and this track is a lot better. “Year’s Not Long” is a surging slice of lo-fi indie rock that relies heavily on a bassy, post punk groove and pretty disinterested vocals that slide over the disorted guitars. The melody on this track is not as wilfully hidden as on the previous material I heard and that leads to the band coming up with a bloody good song that is rather to my liking. It sort of sounds like something Fred Thomas might do these days if he decided to be in a noisy band again. Lots of swirling sounds in the mix and the recording / production is way less obnoxious, giving the music room to breath and a chance to get stuck in your head. I love the freewheeling joy of the instrumentation and everything comes together to make something that is really rather good actually.

Meanwhile on the other side is Eat Skull, a band I never really got on with, but maybe I just didn’t give them enough of a chance. This song fits in really well with Male Bonding, being fuzzy, lo-fi poppy garage shit of the kind I don’t turn my nose up at. It bounces along, with a neat keyboard riff adding variation. This is exceptionally catchy and I am pretty sure this band sounded nothing like this before? Anyway, I think this is well smart and if you have penchant for mussy, poppy music with minimal production value but an exceptional ear for a tune, then this split shows exactly how it’s done. Rough enough to be interesting, catchy enough to bear repeated listening. And on a UK label too.