Loon, The

Catchy, fun, loud indie-rock. The vocals are often fuzzed in the Modest Mouse/Wolf Parade/Pavement style, but the clean sound is welcome as well. The guitars on this album are more interesting than a lot of indie, it channels both proto-punk and post-punk. -- Tapes 'n Tapes sound like they can't help but make sweet, listenable indie-rock that their parents would like, but desperately want to be angry, so they'll randomly turn up the distortion and fuzz the vocals. They learned this from the Pixies. Picks: 3, 7, 11. FCC Clean

-Wicked Child

1) Lots of garage-rock guitar noodling, heavily fuzzed vocals. Energetic ending.
2) Weak track, repetitive. Still has crunchy guitars and fun sound effects.
***3) Rolling western/jangly guitars. Clean verse vocals, great Franz-Ferdinand fuzzy chorus vocals. ~9s fade-out. The album’s clear single. Super catchy.
4) Hummed opening, then angular, post-punky guitars (think Mclusky). Almost no vocals. Ending gets friendly again. This track is all over the place.
5) Sweet melody, vocals break into spoken-word at times.
6) Quietest instrumentation, cleanest vocals. Reaching/searching feel. Like a subdued Arcade Fire song. Crazy demented guitar breakdown with ~1min left.
***7) Pixies homage. Quivering early Frank-Black vocals, starts almost jangly guitars, gets more electric. Group-sounding backing vocals. Fun.
8) Bass heavy, strutting guitars, quiet, but explodes at chorus & end. Similar to track 5.
9) Slow, dominant snare drums, borderline alt-country. Beautiful reverb-ed crescendo near end.
**10) Most fun vocals here, bouncy. Catchy, sometimes decipherable lyrics. "Call me out. How can I, sing on key?"
**11) 2 minutes of Television-style guitars, then gets slower (& relatively more droney) with catchy & angsty vocals.