You won't find a tougher sell on neoclassicism than yours truly, so imagine my surprise how this strummy slab from the thrift racks has become one of my early '06 faves. Minneapolis-based Tapes 'n Tapes do it by the book-- that's to say, off the cuff, taking cues from indie legends and newies alike with star-pupil rigor, but never sweating the exam. Here's a charismatic, playfully slipshod band unconcerned with making all the loose ends meet up, audacious enough to leave the dot-connecting to us. But then, never quite knowing which Feelies riff or Malkmus vocal turn or, hell, CYHSY organ sound these guys will strike with next is precisely what makes The Loon such a rich, participatory, and eminently repeatable experience.
Tapes 'n Tapes kneel before Pavement, Wire, Beach Boys, and Pixies, bearing their influences more publically than notebook logo sketches. But facing the task of averting obviousness, they play the uncool card: "The Iliad" dresses its keystones in afro-MIDI percussion, cuica and humorously fake timbale, its garb recalling the shy kid in sculpture class who could be a hipster if not for those Sketchers: Are the kicks a defense mechanism, ironic one-upmanship, or just a really good deal at TJ Maxx? It's all part of their unpretentious approachability and charm. Tandem tracks "In Houston" and "Manitoba" lounge out with surprise vibe melodies, incongruously smooth counterpoints to an otherwise gruff sound. But the move doesn't raise eyebrows, instead fostering a mellow whiskey-belly warmth. Inconsistency, Tapes 'n Tapes understand, adds character and colorizes personality; it also keeps listeners off-balance and wanting more.
If their aesthetic choices sometimes bewilder, the vocals hit nearer mindfuck. Resistant to the emotionally soaring, soft-spot-as-high-point bone their forebears never hesitated to throw, Tapes 'n Tapes seethe smarm and snark. "I've been a better lover with your mother," frontman Josh Grier snarls over restless, incorrigible strums on "Cowbell". But while smack talk's good for a snicker, the band choose introspection over in-joke on "Insistor", whose initially hushed, scat-quick vocals rise to meet the song's surging polka rhythm for a transcendent chorus: "And when you rush I'll call your name like Harvard Square holds all inane." Delivered with just enough desperation to defeat its inscrutability, the line's sweet as Nutella from the jar, and probably healthier.
Unknowable lyrics aren't the only device Tapes 'n Tapes use to summon their primary influence (ahem, Pavement); the band's strict strums-over-riffs philosophy activates last-decade memories, too. "10 Gallon Ascots", alternately the album's softest and loudest cut, rides a furtive, sneaking rhythm that seems channelled straight from "Stop Breathin'", while "In Houston" fuses its "Two States" two-beat stomp to the record's most Malkmusian vocal articulation, an allusion so overt (and dead-on) it verges on memorial. But the band forgoes their heroes' ascetic brevity-- they're just too happy to wail, and too hyperactive to be stopped. "Crazy Eights" balloons from 90-second instrumental placeholder to something more complex after suddenly wormholing from casual swing to overdriven straight-time; "Manitoba" shakes off its blissful pre-dawn slumber to kick an ecstatic, vibraphone-free coda.
While strong faith is always convincing, Tapes 'n Tapes succeed by practice as much as passion, articulating a conventional vocabulary with rare erudition. As such, The Loon brings something for everybody. Not that the band's diplomacy is a kowtow: Loving is just their quaint way of asking for love. Credit yourself if you can get down with a program offering up so many been-there-done-that indicators. Or better, credit the band for avoiding the toothless mush that typically results from this sort of populism, and arriving instead at a fresh vision through eloquent pastiche.
