They may have come out of the cassette friendly lo-fi north-east London scene of noiseniks (see also: Spectrals, Graffiti Island, Cold Pumas, Fair Ohs), but there's method in Male Bonding's madness. The Dalston trio may come out of the blocks with loud distorted guitar, runaway drumming and half-hidden vocals, but this is no Times New Viking covering everything in a specially crafted murk. In the increasingly eclectic Sub Pop roster they may have found a natural home, slotting in next to labelmates No Age and last track guests Vivian Girls. However, Male Bonding have an eye trained on the rousing punk-pop tradition of Buzzcocks, rather than the garage hardcore tendencies of Husker Du.While there's plenty of indirect references within these thirteen tracks, packed into 29 minutes, it doesn't feel retrospective for the most part. The band are digging around to find the most circtitious route from A to B. And underneath it all, the purest melodies and most earpricking, immediate hooks. Some, as on the first two tracks, are derived from surf's cyclically quick riffage, almost arriving fully formed and scuffed up from the beat boom. 'Weird Feelings' takes a Byrdsian guitar figure and submerges it in nasty sounding bass and churning, blurred power trio dynamics taken from somewhere near SST's back catalogue. There's a couple of Afrobeat guitar mini-solos, the odd nod to the Minutemen's cracked minatures ('Crooked Scene'), the shaded reverb of shoegaze and, on 'Nothing Remains', something oddly like the early Wedding Present, just slowed down a touch. For the most part, though, the template is set at John Arthur Webb's declamatory, bruised vocals and circular, warped riffs in sixth gear against a speeding rhythm section.On the couple of occasions when they decide not to be shot out of a cannon, their moments of fogginess are less consistent. 'Franklin' sounds like an outtake from Jesus & Mary Chain's Darklands, while 'Worst To Come', the aforementioned guest spot for the Vivian Girls aaah-ing away in the background, features well reverberated vocals and acoustic guitar before being briefly joined by what sounds like a whole factory floor before just stopping, a not totally satisfying ending. Still, not working out how to ally their approach to something slower is a small price to pay straight off the blocks for something so instantly catchy and exhilirating for ones so unclean.