Male Bonding sound like an uptempo Teenage Fanclub. You could even say they are a little Bandwagonesque (sorry). There are some hints of Sebadoh too, and that whole C-86 redux rears its moderately attractive and most likely bespectacled head. After all the excitement that they have engendered recently, I was expecting something more radical. Nevertheless Endless Now is a palatable listen, even if it doesn’t get your synapses crackling with excitement. So if you’re looking for something comfortable – like lounge pants or a nice sofa – they are perfect. For instance, ‘Seems to Notice’ could even have been a moderately well received Teenage Fanclub single played slightly too fast. But this album garners my reservations in the same way that I’m perturbed by the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: there seems to be no lack of technical mastery and a very precise appropriation of genre conventions, but it can’t escape seeming a little autodidactic and contrived. Contrived is harsh and I do not mean it is manufactured or doubt the authenticity – however nebulous that term is, and how little I care for it – but Endless Now lacks any great original or subversive quality and comes across as solidly earnest. ‘Bones’ is the song that comes closest to being unaffected by their canon of influences; it has a pop-punk element that sounds like Japanther and is rather more texturally complex even if some token harmonising is unsurprisingly indulged at the end. ‘Mysteries Complete’ also repeats this trick of being throw-away, but also beguilingly complex.
There are some high points, but they are often negated by slightly embarassing moments. ‘The Saddle’ is, thankfully, a very brief song. It aims for cryptic but the intonation is mawkish; slow, idiomatic, acoustic, alternative ballad gruel. It sends the earnest-o-meter into overdrive: "If it still hurts find a saddle, I will be around". But the album ends strongly, even if it stays within the vaguely Teenage Fanclub-ish parameters. ‘Channeling Your Fears’ and ‘Dig You Out’ are pretty decent attempts at songwriting. The problem with this album is that it is very polite and I expected more from a band who were - from my memory of seeing them live - louder and more aggressive with some degree of harmonic complexity (the one element of their sound that they have retained on the album).
This record pales in comparison to the output of their other band Pre, who are by all accounts fucking ace. Unlike Male Bonding, however, Pre are too erratic to reach a more mainstream audience. Endless Now shows that Male Bonding should not be written off, but at the same time has cooled the expectations that I had for their first album. It will no doubt find some willing adherents, but I am - for now at least – going to sit on the fence.