Walk It Off : Tapes 'n Tapes : Review : Rolling Stone

It may strut its funky virtuosity like Prince, threaten to collapse in a drunken heap like the Replacements or rage like Hüsker Dü, but Minneapolis rock is always tuneful — an important comfort to folks freezing their nuts off most of the year. On the follow-up to their 2006 debut, The Loon, Minnesota's Tapes 'n Tapes hew to tradition, conjuring the Hüskers on "Le Ruse," a tirade on betrayal, with guitars and cymbals swarming like late-summer mosquitoes.

Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridman adds filigree without getting too psychedelic, while frontman Josh Grier channels his high-strung charm into songs that morph from rant to riff with ADD energy. "When you tease me, I'm alone in the battle of the bones," he warble-whines on "Conquest," a syncopated gem nearly as sexy as the recent White Stripes cover of the same name. Not everything is so distinctive, and there's some generic Modest Mouse/Arcade Fire indie histrionics. But the Tapes are finding their voice. And when "Headshock" sends its guitar groove skyward, the immediate pleasure makes questions of influence moot.