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A lo-fi/no-fi band long stalking the venues of Hoxton, 
Male Bonding delivered their full-length LP back in May. Uh, a belated review then, but one worth writing, really. For following a set of 7 inches that at times reeked of toxic sludge, the murk here has been replaced with a totally ace recording of their tunes that finds the spectral vocals retained, floating like an apparition fuzzy through an amplifier, but the guitars so much brighter, more vibrant, yet replete with their snarl. Stand out tracks include ‘Franklin’ with its yearning stop-start chorus and its ‘All this will last forever’ refrain, ‘Your Contact’ with its sunny Californian drive vibe, ‘Pirate Key’ with its dazed stoner grunge something like a spiritual mantra, while the riffs on the fun-as-fuck ‘Pumpkin’ find Vampire Weekend’s ‘Cousins’ jauntiness turned liquid. The brash acoustic closer of ‘Worse To Come’ – along with the grinding bass driven ‘Weird Feelings’ – confirms the overall impression that Male Bonding are closer in punky spirit to Nirvana than the current crop of (mostly) American noise-pop bands. And this debut leaves us bright-eyed in the hope that they too can explode landfill indie for another era. ‘I see myself in colour, I see myself in light…’
On record the Magic Kids weave a thread of Pet Sounds with something of a light touch, but live we find an explanation as to how they manage to hold their own in a scene of garage bands back in their hometown of Memphis. Sonically, the band kick out their summer jams with visceral guitars, their violin made a siren, their keys spiralling to ear-piercing frequencies and drums that end some songs in an avalanche to rival any rockers of the grimier persuasion.
the maturity born of unheard releases. Scratchy earthy guitars, heavenly electrics, tumbling pianos, bells and whistles (literally) paint melancholy brush strokes on songs like ‘Game Shows’, ‘Tom Cruz’ and ‘Undone Melody’. The latter playing as its title suggests, a distant cousin of Alex Chilton’s ‘Kangaroo’, a spectral anti-ballad of stop-start instrumentation, ready to fall apart at its seams before pulling itself together for a triumphant coda. Elsewhere, ‘Swinging Bells’, ‘Celebration’ and ‘Kon Tiki’ offer the kind of woozy surf psychedelia explored recently by MGMT, and fully on Porno for Pyros’ underrated ‘Good God’s Urge’. The fantastic soundscapes ridden by vocals in turns brooding, at others falsetto, the off-kilter yelps nuanced nonetheless by an intonation that’d do the premier league stadium rockers proud; the lyric: ‘I want to be your American Idol’ drawing an uncomfortable irony. That track, though, with its great brass providing a soulful groove, joins ‘The Mama Papa’ in providing jaunty, funky excursions that could find them rocking your radio. Meanwhile, ‘Future From The 80s’ (is Montreal like Shoreditch?) is all submerged rhythm, feedback like light sweeping over the surface – making another odd addition to a terrifically odd album.
New York, the lead track is driven by the kind of chugging retro-punk guitar riff originated by the band’s presumed masculine namesake, while the melodic chorus, with its (unfortunately) cheesy backing vox, evokes Blondie at their most poptastic; singer Karen Anne’s words sung with the confident inflections of a well-honed Karaoke Kid of the sort born into the eighties. Apt for a song that authentically evokes the kind of indie disco painted by a primary coloured lighting rig above and cider on the floor. The flip ‘Steve McQueen’, meanwhile, incorporates synths into that mix – making a new wave nugget Cars fans will really dig. But with staid lyrics (‘a city built of broken dreams’, ‘I keep chasing dreams, the closest I’ve ever been’) that fail to connect with the contemporary, despite the sentiment the record ends up sound like the kind of radio buzz job that turns the well-intentioned into Avril Lavigne. Nonetheless, with much heart and ambition in their sound – they sound like they were born to trouble the charts – it will be good to hear what Ramona come out with next.
of the title track. A gamble, really, when the song sounds like it’s been directly lifted from a Crystal Castles record (though I can’t pin down which track exactly as that’d require me to listen to Crystal Castles again). But as this album unfolds, Salem prove themselves to be a far more exciting proposition, the songs constructed in an interesting enough manner to never outstay their welcome. Showing their true colours as they break out the second track, ‘Asia’ is the best challenge to your sound system since ‘Crown On The Ground’; a tapestry of eerie sounds, Doppler-effected synths like sirens, a soundtrack to the best torture-porn flick yet to be made. The tracks were clearly named after the construction of the sounds, ‘Frost’ being suitably icy, ‘Sick’ and ‘Trapdoor’ churning in their slowed down rap vocals, ‘Release Da Boar’ a threat to play your enemies down the phone. The inventive play with samples – if not the beats, which rattle along almost as an afterthought – creates an almost numinous haunt of atmospherics as intense and claustrophobic as anything Massive Attack has created. This is late-night basement music to get paranoid to.
having spawned its own genre, Magic Kids are yet another addition to the canon. But a welcome one, nonetheless. At times the young six piece achieve multi-layered pop gems – as on ‘Candy’, ‘Hideout’ and ‘Summer’ – where their violins, pianos and electronics bolster their sound and weave a shimmering tapestry most other outfits would go and hire an additional orchestra for. However, while the likes of Jason Pierce and Luke Steele tend to take Wilson’s template and skewer it with contemporary concerns and newer sounds, here Magic Kids retain the retro splendour of the sixties sun-kissed Californian original. This means that despite the slightly menacing kid on the cover, ‘Memphis’ sometimes succumbs to a tweeness akin to the worst excesses of Los Campesinos. But if songs about ‘steady girls’ and ‘watching the sunrise / after staying up all night’ are your thing, these clever harmonies and complex arrangements will give you your kicks. And the scope of ideas within this half hour debut is certainly worth commending, especially considering the band’s fermentation in a garage rock scene within which they really must seem magical.
Turned-up collars, rolled-up sleeves, keyboard neck-ties – these are the horrific images ‘Smash & Grab’ call to mind. Even the Johnny Bravo haired hipsters in Shoreditch must be bored of this eighties shit by now. The lyrics are nondescript, but in the context of drunken dance floor shenanigans the rhythm drives along like a DeLorean looking to burn tracks, disappearing at 88 to give way to a nice synth line half way through, the chorus surfing its neon pink wave to its end. A pleasant enough pop song, if not in anyway a great one. Also featuring on the single, ‘Keith & Supabeatz’ live up to their moniker and provide a suitably cheesy remix that bends time to torture in the way only shitty bpm remixes can. Bonus track ‘High Definition’, meanwhile, shows a more textured approach to the sonics than the lead, with new member Paoli Di Liberto dropping science on keys and programming, while singer Mark Baker offers more of his soul-bearing insights: ‘I’m looking at you / In high def-in-ish-un / All becomes clear / Nothing left to fear’. Wow… just, wow.
finest noise-pop mavericks return to reclaim their crown (move over ‘King of the Beach’!). The B-sides on the 12inch demonstrate the two modes of rocking the band usually bust: languorous waves of feedback creating lush soundscapes (‘Vision II’), or a two-and-a-bit-min thrash-punk freakout (‘In Rebound’). But on lead track ‘Glitter’ No Age show a maturity – or at least a developed focus – to their songwriting, merging the two so that the lyric based latter is bolstered by electric frequencies that rise, fall, roll and crash to beautiful effect. ‘I’ve been wondering / When is it my turn to get a win / Everyone is out to get you again / but I want you back underneath my skin’ croons drummer / vocalist Dean Spunt, bookending verses rolling with the youthful invincibility of the Pumpkin’s ‘1979’ (‘I don’t fear anything at all’), his delivery of the lines still somewhat stilted, though more New Order and less Dalek than on previous records, while Randy Randall’s guitar weaves a sound something like a dream state interrupted by a de-tuned radio. Ray-gunning a subtle solo from another planet, their forthcoming LP should be wild.
Not because they were good enough to get the queen of corporate rock to produce, but because said producer has done them a great disservice by recording an album so clean that even ace singer / guitarist Juju Sophie’s squealing on tracks like ‘Darling Dear’ are stripped of their wildness and instead sound like someone wet-wiping a Lamborghini with the fervour of true yuppie scum. To be fair to Perry she helped refine the Oxford band’s (a duo of Juju with drummer Nez Greenaway, and the occasional Hammond organist) song-writing, which is tight, concise, and will appeal to the masses who still shit themselves at the snarl of the alt-American sounds they emulate – YYYs, Kills, Patti Smith, Pixies, Blondie at their most electric. Genuine emotion and vision often infuse the lyrics, delivered with great nuance in the vox and easy guitar shapes. So it’s a shame they sound less Kim Deal, more Kim Wilde – alienating themselves from their true audience by being squeezed into orange juice punks, when they’re a lot better than most other garage bands today. More scuzz, less fuss, next time round will do them proud.
