Yo La Tengo is back. Not in the sense that they've been on hiatus, and not because they haven't put anything worthwhile out in a few years. The indie legends have answered back from their somber 2003 release, Summer Sun, and unfathomably topped themselves with an album filled with what could have been plucked from a collection of the best work from their 20-plus years experience as critical darlings.
But I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (the best album title of 2006) is not a best of album; it's an original creation of schizophrenic genius, born of a band who have continuously avoided musical trends, and whose sound has dipped into a contrasting hodge-podge of pools, from atmospheric noise to fresh, unabashed sunshine-pop.
Yo La Tengo's latest release is a perplexingly diverse and jumbling jaunt through the emotional gamut, beginning with the 11-minute, amped-up, leather-and-grease distortion of the album's opener, Pass the Hatchet
I Think I'm Goodkind and closing with the equally-lengthy guitar fuzz drone of The Story of Yo La Tengo. The tracks in between showcase the skilled musicianship and crafty songwriting that the band has proven itself more than capable of, whether shooting for mood music or a happy-go-lucky summertime stroll.
Following Pass the Hatchet the frolicking Beanbag Chair is care-free, Sunday-morning pop at its greatest. It is interrupted by the sleepy sing-talk, which drummer Georgia Hubley delivers in one of the album's most intimate moments during I Feel Like Going Home. Though inherently different, when placed next to each other, these songs fuse like yin and yang.
From the dreamy ambience of Daphinia to the horn-infused 70s jazz of Mr. Tough (laced with some noteworthy falsetto straight from the pipes of frontman Ira Kaplan), I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass startles at first listen, and knocks someone out at second. Technically, the album shouldn't flow, but it does. It could be broken apart, reassembled and turned backward, and it would still work. It is a welcome spattering of the eclecticism of Yo La Tengo's musical direction over their long career. It proves that sometimes borrowing from experimental past actually does work.
17
Archives
Rachel Bernhard
