Tapes 'n Tapes

The band that saved the album.

For the last two to three years of my college life I subsisted musically on an almost exclusive diet of live recordings. My taste was unrelentingly entrenched in what could be loosely (and for lack of a better word) described as the "jam band" genre. Phish, String Cheese Incident, Umphrey's McGee, and a host of lesser known but no less cherished bands were my food and drink. The Live Music Archive was my mecca.

Due to the nature of these bands' heavy touring schedule and improvisationally tilted approach to performance, they had a tendency to be amazing on stage but entirely underwhelming in the studio. Because of this phenomenon, I almost completely lost my faith in album rock and rarely sought out commercially released music.

It took a thousand mile move across the country, a new job at a music store, and a debut album from a quartet of unseasoned Minneapolis indie rockers called Tapes 'n Tapes to change all that. Freshly settled in Colorado, I was still green at the new job but already loving the employee discount. I spent a lot of time (both on the clock and off) familiarizing myself with the product.

Impulse buys are always done with the best intentions and never for the best reasons but we are all guilty of it on occasion. It was the album cover of The Loon (pictured above) that facilitated this musical pot shot. If there were any other reason for me to pick this one out from all of the others, the memory of it has long been washed away due in large part to my appreciation for its contents.

The blunt and ringing opening notes of the first track "Just Drums" quickly make way for dense guitar strumming, heavy drums, deep bass and the distorted, gritty vocals of front man Josh Grier. To someone more familiar with the genre, it may have sounded like just another wannabe indie group grasping for a foothold but for me it was different. There was an irreverence about their sound, an edge that was completely missing from everything else I was listening to at the time.

What comes out of that irreverence is what I admire most about The Loon. The band could have stuck with that style that drew me in from song one, but instead the album jumps from one style to another, highlighting nearly each of the band's musical influences in the process. And the best part is, it never loses its impetus or that newly discovered audacity.

One of the best tracks on the album, "Insistor" is a fast paced, country infused, polka chorused assault with excellent vocals.



"Omaha" is a complete change of pace from "Insistor" but shows how the band can switch gears stylistically.



The pace picks back up again with "Cowbell"



Another favorite, "In Houston", mellows a bit but is lyrically charged.



Before hearing this album, I was content to leave Indie to the "hipsters". Now I'm waist deep in a genre so expansive and full of creativity that it is impossible to keep up.

Thanks to lala, you can listen to all of The Loon right from this page:

The Loon - Tapes 'n Tapes

For more from Tapes 'n Tapes check out these spots:
Tapes 'n Tapes homepage
Tapes 'n Tapes on MySpace
Tapes 'n Tapes on Facebook

BONUS
Here is the excellent video for "Hang Them All" from Tapes 'n Tapes sophomore release Walk It Off.