Reviews

Tape Dad

Big Grump The Complete Recordings cassette

BIG GRUMP is a noise rock band from Memphis, TN that I have to assume is now no longer together based on the feeling of finality this tape has. The Complete Recordings is exactly what it sounds like, the complete recorded discography of the band. Mixing equal parts heaviness and mathy riffs, BIG GRUMP is able to keep my attention through the entirety of the cassette without ever crossing the threshold into being too artsy. If they are in fact broken up, what a bummer. If not, I look forward to more releases from them.

Musclegoose Yah Mo B There, God? It’s Me, Michael McDonald cassette

Musically, this almost rips at times, but the whole release is so overly chock-full of puns, plays on words, paragraph-long song titles, ’90s movie and music references, and goofy lifted riff parodies that it’s hard to look at just the music. I imagine this is a band of really fun people to be around who have wonderful senses of humor, and if you’re in on the goof this is probably side-splittingly hilarious. I, however, just find the novelty aspect of it a bit confusing, off-putting, and distracting.

V/A Tape Dad cassette

Tape Dad is a cassette label from Fayetteville, Arkansas, and this is their first compilation release, with plans of doing a new one to be released every year on Father’s Day. Very clever, Cassette Daddy! “It’s a crazy hodgepodge of different genres, styles, cities of origin, and friends” (per the label’s Bandcamp discussing the compilation), and I couldn’t agree more. With twenty tracks, I could go on about this forever, but rather than that I am going to focus on the handful of standout tracks from the punk/punk-adjacent realm that readers of MRR may care about, ignoring the jammy/college rock/singer-songwriter/indie/art stuff and leaving that for another place to review. PONO A.M. kicks off the comp with a killer driving track of garage-infused insanity not unlike THEE OH SEES. MUSCLEGOOSE has a weird, spastic, cow-punk kind of feel to them. BIG GRUMP, whose cassette I also just reviewed, is some cool, nasty noise rock. The PHLEGMS play a cool mixture of driving garage rock and post-punk. There’s a lot of cool stuff on this comp, and a lot that is very much not for me. Give it a listen and decide for yourself!