Tapes ‘n Tapes : Outside

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/tapesntapesoutside.jpg" alt="Tapes 'n Tapes : Outside" />Aping but not matching finer artists, with sounds you've heard better in other places, <i>Outside</i><span style="font-style: normal"> - and Tapes ‘n...
Tapes 'n Tapes : Outside
5.5 Ibid
2011 

Tapes 'n Tapes : Outside There was a time in the middle of the last decade when the blogs loved nobody as much as Tapes ‘n Tapes.  Their 2005 debut full-length, The Loon (re-released in 2006), inspired such affection that Aziz Ansari (Parks & Recreation) did a killer skit as their ultra-aggressive promoter on MTV’s Human Giant (threatening blogs who didn’t post their mp3 with “a Columbian necktie”).  But Human Giant‘s time has passed, and so, seemingly, has Tapes ‘n Tapes.  Not with the blog-backlash that accompanied their decent follow-up Walk It Off (QRO review) – as overdone in hate as once in praise – but with the collective shrug that comes with the new Outside.  Aping but not matching finer artists, with sounds you’ve heard better in other places, Outside – and Tapes ‘n Tapes – feel inessential.

Walk It Off did sound a lot like the superior Wolf Parade (QRO live review), but that was Wolf Parade at their mightiest, meaning a poor man’s Wolf Parade was nothing to sneeze at.  Outside has the same borrowed elements – high and reedy vocals, with a warbling cadence, and tinnier instrumentation.  But whereas Walk had a fun spirit to make up (at least to some degree) for not being as accomplishedly complex as the admittedly-complex Wolf Parade, the fun on Outside feels paint-by-numbers.  And they’re yet other people’s numbers – “Hidee Ho” is a poor man’s stripped Walkmen (QRO live review), with an underwhelming finish, while the antique-y sounds of Clinic (QRO spotlight on) are used to no special effect on middle piece “Outro” and closer “Mighty Long”.

It’s saying something when the best pieces on a record are a shallow-but-enjoyable ditty (“One In the World”) and the time the band plays it straightest (alt-country/road “Freak Out”).  The strum Tapes “SWM”, dirty blues Tapes “The Saddest of All Keys”, fifties slow garage-pop sway “People You Know”, and certainly the Tapes back-to-back marches “Nightfall” and “Desert Plane” are all wholly unimpressive.  And when the band does a somewhat interesting tech-smooth backbeat, with scratchy sounds above on “On and On”, they go overboard and into a jumble at the end (a guitar-rock jam also mars “Outro”).

Wolf Parade’s last, Expo 86 (QRO review), saw the band dissipate somewhat as co-frontmen Spencer Krug & Dan Boeckner seemed more interested in their burgeoning too-big-to-be-called-side-projects, Sunset Rubdown (QRO live review) and Handsome Furs (QRO album review).  Tapes ‘n Tapes started from nowhere near as high a high, but no interesting side-projects emerged from their slide into yesterday’s news.

MP3 Stream: “Freak Out

{audio}/mp3/files/Tapes n Tapes – Freak Out.mp3{/audio}

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