The Thousands

A theory: We are about due for the next rotation in the endless recycling of music. We’ve seen the ‘80s hardcore of Fucked Up (albeit great), kids ripping off Robert Smith shamelessly, and just about every pop culture sound prior to that pillaged for mass sentimental yet slightly adjusted consumption. Noise? Well that never really went away. Grunge? Revivialists abound. What after that? What is the grand next step of the process? UH OH, it can only be one thing. White boy pop-punk. Look out, here come the Pennywise, Millencolin, and NOFX references. Ok, chill, I jest!

Simplifying Male Bonding down to ’90s pop-punk isn’t quite adequate, but all the elements are there: 2-3 minute tracks of a bazillion m.p.h. tempo (though lacking the true 90s punk double time) packed full of immediate melody. The point of difference here from more traditional pop-punk, however, is in the production. Noisy surf-punk blended with the blistering and frenetic, Sub Pop-loved reverb vocals instead of throaty fulmination, the Male Bonding sound is more akin to Husker Du gone surfing rather than Jawbreaker gone smashing.

The most admirable aspect of pop-punk was always its immediacy. On Nothing Hurts, it’s all right there. Two-chord blitzkrieg ‘Year’s Not Long’ is straight up flat out punk at 2:35 in length, but the vocal is classic reverb-blanched surf. ‘Nothing Used to Hurt’ is compressed lo-fi noise for a minute before finishing in true bouncy punk style – again, what you’d call ‘surfed up’. True to pop-punk formula, the finale is acoustic and imbued with distant vocals, with The Vivian Girls guaranteeing hipster-of-the-day cred.