Franklin

"Franklin" finds Male Bonding in slightly more melodic territory, the noise still present but configured here around something that moves with more intention, a cleaner through-line threading the distortion. There's a propulsive quality to the rhythm section — the bassline becomes more audible, doing real harmonic work underneath the guitar wash — and the tempo carries a kind of directed urgency rather than the free-floating churn of their more abrasive tracks. The vocals have a searching quality, reaching slightly beyond the comfortable register, which gives the performance a strained earnestness that suits the lo-fi aesthetic without feeling calculated. The production still carries that compressed, cassette-tape warmth that defined their early run of records: everything sounds slightly close together, the sonic equivalent of a crowded room. Emotionally, the song moves through something that feels like longing with a geographic dimension, the kind of feeling attached to a specific place or a specific version of yourself that you can name but can't fully return to. It sits naturally in the 2010-2011 moment when noise-pop was briefly everywhere — Captured Tracks, Slumberland, small European DIY labels — and Male Bonding were among its more restless practitioners. Best heard walking somewhere at dusk, fast, with headphones in.