I CAN'T WAIT TO MEET YOU!
Michelle Kennedy is a Registered Psychologist in Alberta, lover of the arts, cat mom and “very opinionated” human.
Nothing Hurts isn’t an ironic record. It isn’t post-grunge or a comment about the ridiculousness of ’90s retro a mere 16 years after Kurt Cobain’s death. Instead, Male Bonding have created a solid, energetic punk rock record that is joyfully unwilling to shy away from its pop sensibilities. Nothing Hurts is aggressive and loud but hooky-as-fuck; revelatory and exciting all the while remaining deeply nostalgic.
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Close your eyes. Imagine your favourite lover. The way they smell and taste; the sound of their breath in your ear. You haven’t seen them in a long time and when last you saw them they were near perfect. They kiss you again after all this time and those memories come flooding back. You feel a charge of excitement all the way through your fingertips and things progress much like you expected. At the end you lay there, feeling as though something is missing. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but something is different… That lover is Band of Horses, and that disappointing evening is their surprisingly disappointing new release, Infinite Arms.
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Just to get it over with: the one (albeit small) downside to the exceptional This is Happening is that there is no song for secret summer kisses. James Murphy accounts for every possible circumstance of bad behaviour save for that one: bad choices on dark, hot, summer nights with people you’re never suppose to kiss. This is not a sexy album. Brilliant? Yes. Funny? Certainly. But never ever sexy.
Now on to the good stuff…
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When Paul Weller writes, “Get your face off the facebook and turn off the phone/the death of the post box/nowhere feels home,” he is condemning his own work. This album feels homeless, aimless – a man unable to innovate because of the weight of his own influence, history and spectacular back catalogue. It could be argued that this album is timeless and it would be if it were written in 1972, but instead it sounds desperate, dated, and a last gasp at something Weller hit on years ago. Without irony or a nod to whimsy the classic mod vibe isn’t post modern, it’s just boring – and kind of sad.
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It easy to picture Zooey Deschanel in an old sepia toned boudoir surrounded by everyone’s grandmother’s pearls and lace gloves; her inexplicably beautiful eyes sparking in the fading light of a warm California evening. It’s less easy to picture M. Ward there. His retro is lo-fi: transistor radios and a smoky voice in the chilly Pacific Northwest air. It is this exact juxtaposition that makes Ward and Deschanel a gorgeous aesthetic combination and She & Him a band to be reckoned with.
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