Tapes 'n Tapes - 'Walk It Off' (XL) Released 07/04/08

Exploding onto the Indie Rock scene from Minneapolis in 2006, Tapes 'N Tapes always seemed like that most elusive of entities - An unlikely success story, an undiscovered yet unique constellation that charted its own path amongst the stars, suddenly attracting a wave of hype that was as thoroughly deserved (for once) as it was unexpected. We came to them and set sail on ‘The Loon’, a debut album that was a bumpy ride at times, certainly far from fully realised but extremely interesting and you never knew quite what you were going to get. Like an expedition into the Atlas Mountains, it had its fair share of beauty, suspense and white knuckle thrills but was also hard work at times.   

We all know about sequels. You know - The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Aliens. They tend to be darker creatures than earlier journeys mapped out, directors have enticed the audience and now they are going to freak them out. Perhaps the same applies to second albums, Halloween creeps in after the summer months and it is almost as if certain artists need to sail through murkier waters the second time around in order to keep the natural order of the world intact.

When this works, it results in bands extracting a rare kind of majestic voodoo. We’re talking ‘Neon Bible’, ‘Heaven Up Here’ or ‘Doolittle’. No pressure, then!  

So, Tapes 'n Tapes invite us once again onto their good ship. If ‘The Loon’ sounded a bit like Tom Waits singing with Modest Mouse then this one resembles Nick Cave mining for gold in the darkest recesses of The Pixie’s back catalogue. Just like Daniel Plainview in the recent masterpiece ‘There Will Be blood’ they often strike what they are looking for on an epic scale and with devastating consequences. 

The opening trilogy of songs add significant weight to our theory, starting with ‘Le Ruse’, a sublime 3-minute tour de force of all your favourite climatic Indie rock and concluding with fantastic single ‘Hang Them All’. On the latter, front man Josh Grier sounds like Stephen Malkmus wired after too much black coffee, twilight harmonies and edgy histrionics challenging all and sundry: “Are you gonna tow that line?” repeatedly before it erupts into a memorable and striking chorus. The light hearted sea shanties of yesterday may be gone, there is no flagship anthem like ‘Insistor’ to act as a lighthouse but such songs have been replaced by a muscular, more cohesive and bolder body of work that doesn’t cease to impress. All of this controlled chaos is perfectly harnessed by producer and all-round cosmic sorcerer Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips and MGMT). 

Not that they have forgotten how to make us smile. I mean, for a start if that album title isn’t the funniest bit of AC/DC inspired nonsense that we’ve ever heard then Larry David isn’t the king of socially awkward comedy. ‘The Blunt’ sees them trying on menacing heavy metal riffs and distorted vocals for size and is a massive two fingered salute to anyone who had this band dismissively packed away in the Band Of Horses pale imitations stable. The closing ‘The Dirty Dirty’ lifts off with a sense of gravitas and urgency that rocks superbly on both primordial and more sophisticated levels, all Grinderman riffs and Ziggy Stardust vocals intoning “Where did all the money go, where did all the money go?”. The irony of course is that they have just struck gold and we all stand to prosper from what they have uncovered.