Loved ICFtHBaO and Painful, but I think I was a little intimidated by the size of this band's catalog, never knew where to start. Why not here?
My favorite kind of Yo La Tengo song is the dense builder, heavy with texture and pulse, beamed into my brainstem via subliminal channels. Think Autumn Sweater, We're an American Band, Big Day Coming, and the too-short Superstar-Watcher. The album kicks off with a great new entry onto that list as Pass the Hachet, I Think I'm Goodkind winds through 10 minutes of relentless bass and drone-washed, tin-tunnel straining. There's a couple more like that peppered throughout, with The Room Got Heavy serving as the album's delightfully nightmarish lynchpin, followed much later by the album's epic closer.
Elsewhere YLT stretch their legs a bit more, bopping through baroque, poppy, slightly experimental numbers that evoke what I think Belle and Sebastian sound like*. And then there's frail little pieces of gorgeous like I Feel Like Going Home and the psychobilly 50's stomp of Watch Out for me Ronny. All over the map.
It's actually a good structure, with those 3 classic YLT drone numbers serving to anchor the experimental forays. I don't much enjoy the bouncier bits in isolation, but as a whole, it works as a lower calorie, slighty less rich Yo La Tengo experience, better, perhaps for tanktops than Autumn Sweaters, but a legitimate Yo La Tengo album. Which, is good 4/5
You might like this if: you like sweet pop, pretty drone rock, and plenty of what falls in between. If you like Belle and Sebastian (??)
*I don't actually know B&S nearly as well as well as several ladies I have known have suggested I should. Just can't get into them. Sorry ladies!
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