Tapes 'n Tapes

The Loon, Tapes n' Tapes 2006 debut, was a textbook blog success stories. On the strength of Josh Grier's fidgety lead vocal and his post-Pavement guitar noodlery, this Minneapolis quintet won over a legion of keyboard tapping tastemakers. The buzz was so deafening that it catapulted the band into the pages of Rolling Stone, onto late night TV, and into the iPod of anyone within ear shot almost over night. But with flashy successes come undesirable side effects—namely, loads of anticipation. So cuing up for Walk it Off, the band's second outing, most of the talk focused on whether or not Tapes could side-step the sophomore slump and recreate the immediacy and indie magic of their debut. But as if thumbing their noses at the suspense and speculation, Tapes emerge with a sophomore album that, in spots, matches its predecessor's ramshackled brilliance, and in others, falls noticeably short.

Enlisting the behind-the-boards help of Dave Fridmann—both the helmsmen for such take-two flops as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's Some Loud Thunder, and the knob-twiddling mastermind behind a handful of Flaming Lips masterpieces—didn't do much in making the picture clearer. On try #2, the Tapes cagey energy and shakey anxiety has been turned into out-and-out bombast, levels pushed to the point of gnarly digital distortion, quirk obscured by force. On occasion, the overblown feeling is a strong suit. Album closer "The Dirty Dirty" is fittingly named, and packs more punch than anything the band has ever done, but more often than not, these songs simply lack The Loon's simple clarity. Even so, the fact remains that Grier and company are remarkably adept at writing indie pop hooks, and Walk It Off has those in spades—the wide-eyed yowling in "Hang Them All," the merry go round staccato of "Headshock," just to name a few. If only the actually songs that surrounded them weren't so hit or miss.

—Robbie Mackey
04.24.08

On Walk It Off, Tapes 'n Tapes' first album for XL, the band trades the energy of The Loon for a more polished, cohesive sound, but it's hard to say that they got the better end of the deal. The Loon was often scattered, but appealingly so -- it sounded like what it was, a pile of tapes (and tapes!) turned into a scrappy debut album. More importantly, nearly every song on The Loon had an urgency that carried through the album's twists and turns. Tapes 'n Tapes didn't change their approach radically for Walk It Off -- their nasally vocals, angular guitars, and keyboard doodles are all in place -- but that urgency is missing, and it makes a difference. The band worked with Dave Fridmann on this album, and while teaming a quintessential indie rock producer like him with a band of indie rock classicists like Tapes 'n Tapes might seem like a good idea on paper, it doesn't quite work. Too many of the band's rambunctious edges have been buffed away, so that even when "Le Ruse"'s guitar solo splatters like silly string, it doesn't make much of an impact. And even though Fridmann's work isn't that elaborate -- by his standards, anyway -- Walk It Off's layers of sound seem to take precedence over the actual songs, as on "George Michael" (so named because the song's opening riff reminded the band of "Faith"), where the whooshing synths and lavish brass are more memorable than the melody or lyrics. That's Walk It Off's main problem: Tapes 'n Tapes make pretty straightforward music, with no eight-minute suites or wildly eclectic instrumentation to distract from whether or not their songs connect. They fail to connect to a disappointing degree here, whether on "Anvil" and "Time of Songs," which cross over from calm to listless, or on "Demon Apple" and "Blunt," rockers that mistake repetition for insistence. However, there are just as many moments when Tapes 'n Tapes pull it together: "Hang Them All" recalls The Loon's grit and energy; "Conquest"'s playful percussion, pristine chords, and roundabout yearning sound like a heart skipping a beat; and "Say Back Something" may be Walk It Off's finest moment, a nervous ballad about the subtle silence that can creep up on a couple and split them in two. "Lines" even shows how well Tapes 'n Tapes and Fridmann's collaboration could've worked for the entire album, building a looping melody from a languid (but not limp) start to galloping drums and guitars that bust out of the gate (the distorted drums that make "Headshock" sound even more impatient are another great example of when the band and producer are on the same page). For all the effort spent on Walk It Off, nothing makes as much of a visceral impact here as songs like "Insistor" did on The Loon -- often, it feels like there's fog or a glass wall between the music and listeners' ears. Walk It Off is hardly a disaster, but it is a strange, lopsided album -- despite its focus, it just doesn't play to Tapes 'n Tapes strengths as much as it should have. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide