Are Dave Fridmann’s eardrums still functioning? Maybe he stood a little too close to Mercury Rev’s bass monitor or spent too many years squeezing every last decibel out of noiseniks Mogwai and the Flaming Lips. Whatever the reason, the leadoff tracks on two recent Fridmann productions—Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Some Loud Thunder and Walk It Off, the second album from Tapes ‘N Tapes—sound as if they were fed through the ruptured subwoofers of an ’86 Firebird. Opener “Le Ruse” is caked in so much low-end distortion that the Minneapolis quartet gets lost in the crackling mud. Eventually, Walk It Off reveals Tapes ‘N Tapes’ debut, 2006’s The Loon, to be both leaner and meaner. “Say Back Something” and “Hang Them All,” Walk It Off’s divergent high-water marks, are exemplary of the two tricks the group pulls off best: hopeless wistfulness and end-of-the-rope hysteria. But the secondary material here fails to match the depth of The Loon, where the buzzsaw hits never seemed to stop. Walk It Off’s latter half doesn’t produce anything to match its frontloaded first, and it ends with guitarist/vocalist Josh Grier singing, “Where did all the money go?” Good question. [www.xlrecordings.com]
—Noah Bonaparte Pais
