Tapes ‘N Tapes
Walk it Off
“We’ve been trying to hold you up to keep you safe from the fall,” the album’s first refrain intones, “I’ve been trying to hold you up until you break from the fall.” As far as sophmore efforts go, it seems a fitting opening. The group’s first full length, The Loon, had the dubious privilege of being named one of the “‘06 faves” by Pitchfork Media, judgment rendered subsequent to an extended session of blog-based-ball-sucking. So I wander into Tapes n’ Tapes’ latest, aware of the bumped-up production value—the supposedly-estimable Dave Fridmann twiddling the knobs here—cognizant of the bullshit laws of hype-deflation, sensing the underlying promise and threat of the whole undertaking. And ultimately not giving a damn. This is pop, is what’s abundantly clear. Though no kind of groundbreaking, it’s an effort at foundation-laying, a bit of wax flush against what has for the past couple of decades—whether punk, new wave, glam—passed as populist tunes-man-ship. “Le Ruse” comes swinging with cymbals, with propulsive heady percussion cupping a glide across the toothy guitars. Josh Grier’s voice comes from somewhere in the back of his throat, that rare, steady saw that manages right pitch, right feel. It evokes a Wolf Parade and a Modest Mouse in a measure alone. (Metaphorical allusion intended.) The second track slows the roll, a bass line that’s almost too syrupy to stomach, cut posthaste with some of that ol’ indie rock sparkling guitar, some tamborine. More gets mashed-up in due course.
In fact, there’s listed on the insert to the record an omniharp, tubular bells, timpani, circuit bending, timpani. Yes, timpani—twice. And circuit bending being not exactly an instrument, rather a manipulation of one, but that’s OK. That’s OK. See, what this record has, well, it’s got a bonus 7″–the single-side, “Hang Them All,” third track on the album proper, somehow tastefully incorporating bells and whacka-whacka style guitar, sailing organs and dance beat, dance beat, tempo change– and a code for downloading a digital version of the vinyl record. I’m no kind of number-cruncher, but I think that comes out to about two albums right there, yeah.
Point is, the band’s generous. And literate. And they don’t spare a hook. “Headshock,” a nice sort of hoorah before some mid-record bungles, trades in wistful declamations. The springy bass and drums are in conversation. “Headshock right out your needs, I will never never never leave out so still your heart, I will never never never never stop,” goes the text. And when the chorus comes round again, “needs” gets swapped out for “knees,” “heart” for “mind,” and there’s enough of “never” to span the stampede drums. Oh the oblique logic! All members share vocal duties, and by the end, well, the band’s full tilt in the shimmering, blown-out climax, pounding out the flood of the motif as if someone’s life depended on it. (These boys do, indeed, dig that particular mode of conclusion-through-incantation, whereby an elliptical figure goads the track into a frenzied, if not uplifting, ending.) Hit after hit, it seems, even with “Conquest,” a strutter in its own right. Twittering keys and whistles and bells over the jaunty rhythm, the hiss of the synth cruising somewhere near the subsonic, send the track back and forth between territories of demented grief, of a damn carnival. It is nice, but a bit much.
“Say Back Something” features fine, understated percussion, but on the whole comes off as contrived. A manner of Paul Simon unctuousness, an unabashed pop-swagger is the issue here. “Demon Apple” and “Blunt” show the band’s steel, though. A pair of legitimate—if self-consciously edgy—rock songs—with titles a Black Sabbath devotee might very well be pleased with—props the verve of the whole venture against the sag of offerings like “George Michael” or “Anvil,” which strike this listener as a summertime-version of Belle and Sebastian. Not bad music, to be sure. Ear candy, mark my word. But as someone somewhere should’ve said once, sugar’s more exciting with vodka. Case in point, on the closer, “The Dirty Dirty,” when the singer pleads, desperate and cool—”Where did all the money go, where did all the money go, where did all the money go”—the drum and bass as unforgiving as a bookie with a migraine, and the guitar and keys just keep snarling, I can’t help but lay down a heavy fist. For better or for worse, I’m in. Let’s just hope this crew doesn’t cash in too soon. I suspect they got an ace-up-the-sleeve still waiting to drop.
-Peter Moysaenko
Posted under Hometown
This post was written by MyFriendCleveland on May 2, 2008
