Tapes n' Tapes - Outside (2011)

Tapes ‘n Tapes are a Minneapolis based band that’s been around for over half a decade. Outside is their third LP and since late 2010 they released the single Freak Out as an example of what the album would be. The song was really amazing and I was looking forward to what the Album would have, sadly I made very high expectations thinking that the complete LP would have the quality (if not more) of the single but in reality I didn’t entirely understood the concept of the record.

The instrumentation in outside is very inconsistent and it seems like they thought of each song separately with no awareness of the complete picture they wanted to portray, therefore, listening to the entire 12 songs was not an easy thing to do, I had to take brakes, it was like running a marathon...there were good songs, but they were just not working well together as they did separately. For starters the mood in some songs is very dark or reflexive at times and then comes to a cheesy and happy mood almost like a parade or a circus.

I feel a lot of influence of Brit-Pop that sound like The Fratellis or Franz Ferdinand, and then they jump to some other influence and sound completely different, more druggy old fashioned and tormented, and none of this things are bad on its own, but they simply didn’t nailed it; this inconsistency killed the album for me as a big picture, there was not one song I hated, and I had to listen to it again and again to see if it was a thing that I wasn’t really understanding and I got to the conclusion that there were great songs but only when considered separately, I would have proffered a 6 song EP than a 12 song LP because it just didn’t fit.

Again there was no song I truly hated, but as a record is just not good enough…maybe if every song were made by a different band I’d love every song but listening to the band trying to achieve diversity didn’t work for me, sounded very forced and unnatural.. I’d say that the attempt is even very average and missed some layering and complexity.

Tracklist:

1. Badaboom
2. SWM
3. One in the World
4. Nightfall
5. Desert Plane
6. Outro
7. Freak Out
8. The Saddest of All Keys
9. Hidee Ho
10. People You Know
11. On and On
12. Mighty Long

Rate: 5/10

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