The Tapes - Amateur Premature

The Tapes

Amateur Premature
self-released; 2015

3.2 out of 5

By Jamie Funk

The Tapes consisting of Abhay/Annoying Abhi (Bass Guitar) Hari/The accident (Guitars), Prithvi/Poonam Pandey (Guitars) Pranav/Mr."no more lies" (Vocals) Rico/Bad man/Gulshan Grover (Drums/Songwriter) and Saurav/"Tempo" Tyagi (Guitars) describe themselves as old school grunge on their Facebook page. It’s a bit misleading. The Tapes actually don’t have much in common with Nirvana, Mudhoney, The Melvins, Soundgarden, etc. The sound they have on Amateur Premature if anything fits into post-grunge and sounds more reminiscent of a band like Arctic Monkeys. You wouldn't hear much grunge sounding this upbeat and optimistic. Grunge tends to have a veil of darkness, sadness and melancholy something that this music doesn’t  possess.

The songs on Amateur Premature would have been more effective if the recording quality was improved. The were a number of issues holding the songs back from bursting through the speakers. That being said the songs were enjoyable and the talent the band has is still evident.

The album opens with "Caretaker Heartbreaker" which is a catchy, infectious songs. It ends up being the vocals that carry the song. The delivery is fast and when they leave the mix you notice. They band can also rock out. The oddest thing that baffled me about the song is that it ends about two and half minutes in but is over four minutes in length. I checked their soundcloud and bandcamp page to discover no difference. I’m not sure what the deal was but they should probably end the song when the music ends.

“Silk Stocking” contains dissonant sounding tones and textures during the verse which were engaging in some ways. Once the chorus hits the attempts to rock out with moderate success. “BMW Girl” is arguably the closest the band ever gets to sounding like “old school grunge” Although the overlapping vocal harmonies in that style were never something you heard within the genre. They close with “Mama Told Me” which was as enjoyable as the first song.

Hopefully, on their next release they can improve the recording because the songs didn’t get the treatment they deserved. This band has some potential but some of the songs have a very predictable structure.

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