Yo La Tengo – 3Olympia – Live Review – 10/04/23

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World – Album Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2023/02/09/yo-la-tengo-this-stupid-world-album-review/https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2023/02/09/yo-la-tengo-this-stupid-world-album-review/

Yo La Tengo - Sleepless Night EP - Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2020/09/30/yo-la-tengo-sleepless-night-ep-review/

Yo La Tengo - Fakebook

Yo la Tengo released Fakebook in 1990, an album made up of a few originals and many covers, light years before social media.  The album has a very soft sound, right from the soothing country twang of Can't Forget.  Ira Kaplan sings in a soft, half whisper, bands like Belle and Sebastian may well have been listening and taking notes.  They fare best on their own material.  Barnaby, Hardly Working is revisited from its origin on President Yo La Tengo and recast as a low key strummer, with some great guitar work.  Elsewhere versions of Antonia's Griselda, Cat Stevens' Here Comes My Baby and The Flaming Groovies' You Tore Me Down are dangerously close to cheese.  

One of the strongest tracks is their own The Summer, a Georgia Hubley/Kaplan duet where they make an attempt at inventing a cool, alt-country feel.  The Hubley sung What Comes Next is in a similar vein and equally successful.  Another old Yo La Yengo song reworked, Did I Tell You channels the Velvet Underground third album sound pretty well.

So something of a flawed experiment, though it sees the band dial back the noise and invent the stripped down YLT sound.

Yo La Tengo - New Wave Hot Dogs

Yo La Tengo's second album, released in 1987, sees them go more abrasive than the debut.  As such, band workouts such as Clunk, House Fall Down and Let's Compromise are ok but sound like they were more enjoyable to record than for us to listen to.  The album works better when they shift down a gear.  Did I Tell You and Lewis have a slow, VU grind to them.  Many of the songs are very brief, Lost In Bessemer takes this to an extreme, a 78 second instrumental.  It's Alright borrows some of the melody and chords from the Rolling Stones' I'm Free.  

A Shy Dog is the most recognisable Yo La Tengo sounding track, you can hear the band inventing their 90s sound, while penultimate track No Water is the most muted and probably strongest song here, with an Ira Kaplan guitar flourish or two.  But in the main, the album is interesting to see where the band came from, but little more.

Yo La Tengo - Ride the Tiger

Yo la Tengo released their debut album in 1986, about 10 years or so before their heyday.  For those used to their latter day material, this will come as a surprise.  Many of their albums feel sprawling and diverse, this one decidedly isn't, eleven relatively short guitar tracks, many of which sound in thrall to the major key melodies on the Velvet Underground's Loaded album.

Cone of Silence is fairly representative, a brisk, strumalong tune with Ira Kaplan's Reed-y vocals to the fore.  A jangly Kinks cover pops up early on the album, Big Sky, while the final track sees them record an instrumental version of Pete Seeger's Living in the Country.

The Evil That Men Do is the album's most amped-up moment, while The Forest Green would give The Smithereens a run for their money.  They slow down for the country-flecked The Pain of Pain, the least derivative song here, and it really suits them.  Two thirds in, Kaplan throws in a really fine guitar solo.

Dave Schramm takes lead vocals on the cowpunk The Way Some People Die and vaguely REM-ish Five Years.  Decent tracks, but they sound like a different band.  Later they attempt to get thrashy on Screaming Dead Balloons, but the track doesn't quite hit the mark it was aiming for. 

An amiable collection of guitar tunes which, although far from throwaway, aren't particularly memorable either.

Yo La Tengo – Olympia Theatre – Live Review – 28-04-18

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2018/04/29/yo-la-tengo-olympia-theatre-live-review-28-04-18/

Yo La Tengo – There’s A Riot Going On – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2018/03/08/yo-la-tengo-theres-a-riot-going-on-album-review/

Yo La Tengo - Fade

Rock nerds Yo La Tengo released Fade in 2013, and it sees them well into their 'comfortable' phase.  Ohm opens the album with a repeating guitar figure that the band chant lyrics such as "resist and move on" as the music gradually gets rockier.  Is That Enough is equal parts quiet Lou Reed along with a soulboy chorus, complete with strings. 

As alluded to earlier, Yo La Tengo's noisier side is mainly in the past, though Paddle Forward has a decent set of fuzzy guitars.  But the album consists mainly of understated, gentle rockers such as Stupid Things and I'll Be Around.  Cornelia and Jane, and final track Before We Run feature horns, and some of the grandeur of parts of The National's back catalogue.  The quiet, creeping Two Trains is the most stripped-down track here, allowing plenty of room for Ira Kaplan's voice to breathe.  The track also features some exquisitely downbeat "do doos".  The Point of It is a late highlight, with a gorgeously low key clean guitar part.

It's all very tasteful with only the very poppy Well You Better being a little too much for this writer's ears.  A low-key delight.

Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs

Yo La Tengo released Popular Songs in 2009.  A kind of sprawling, lengthy album, it opens with dramatic strings on Here To Fall, a kind of indie-soul workout.  One of the band's strengths is evoking a lazy, end of summer feel, and soft, shimmering tracks like Avalon Or Someone Very Similar and I'm On My Way do just that, featuring fine guitar from Ira Kaplan, reminiscent of the softest Velvet Underground material.  Georgia Hubley gets do her spooky, sultry chanteuse thing on the keyboard-heavy By Two's and the largely acoustic When It's Dark.  It's not all sweetness, Nothing To Hide contains distorted guitars that grind just the right amount.  Elsewhere, Hubley and Kaplan duet on If It's True, which sounds like a vintage soul song, complete with swooning strings.

The final three lengthy tracks occupy 37 minutes on the album.  The first of these, More Stars Than There Are In Heaven, builds up slowly with gently growling guitars and plods along pleasantly for nine and a half minutes or so, while the virtually instrumental The Fireside sits and shimmers, making pretty sounds and effects for eleven and a half minutes.  They don't really go anywhere, but that's not really the point.  Unfortunately the longest of the three, And The Glitter Is Gone, is merely 16 minutes of grinding guitars, which is more tedious than that sounds.

Still, two out of three is not a bad strike rate and says a lot about Yo La Tengo as a band in general, they are that "two out of three" type band.

Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

Yo La Tengo had done mellow before, but not quite like this.  In 2000 they released an entire album of mostly original, 'quiet' material.  The similar pacing of the album throughout means songs don't really stand out.  Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan's ghostly duet on the eerie opener Everyday is a fine six and a half minutes of droning unease.  It's followed up with Kaplan's whispered Our Way To Fall, which floats along serenely, in common with much of the album.  Therein lies the problem: some songs (Let's Save Tony Orlando's House, You Can Have It All) veer uncomfortably close to cheesy, easy listening territory.  Others (Last Days of Disco, The Crying of Lot G) are generally a bit sleepy and not hugely engaging.

There are exceptions to this.  The bashfully slow Tears Are In Your Eyes features a fine icy vocal from Hubley.  On the other extreme, the totally out of place rocker Cherry Chapstick barrels along in the manner of their earlier, harder-edged material ie it's a bit like Sonic Youth.  In fact the stronger material is towards the end of the album, From Black to Blue and Madeline are quite dozy but they noodle along in a sort of interesting way, with decent almost-choruses.  The furtive organ piece Tired Hippo sets the scene nicely for the final track Night Falls on Hoboken.  Starting with a gentle strum it builds gradually for seven minutes, becoming a full on drone piece for the remaining ten minutes.  It's hugely self-indulgent but kind of cool all the same.

Some of Yo La Tengo's other albums are more varied, and in many ways more enjoyable, but this one has a lazy charm.

Yo La Tengo – National Concert Hall – 15-10-15 – Live Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

http://nomoreworkhorse.com/2015/10/18/yo-la-tengo-national-concert-hall-15-10-15-live-review/

Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

http://nomoreworkhorse.com/2015/08/20/yo-la-tengo-stuff-like-that-there-album-review/

Album Review: Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

1997's I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One is an intimidating prospect.  16 tracks.  68 minutes.  And, supposedly, the critics' favourite.  It all starts out fine with Ira Kaplan's brief, mainly guitar led instrumental, the bafflingly-titled Return To Hot Chicken, which sadly ends before it really gets going.  However from here things get difficult.  Moby Octopad has a repetitive and somewhat annoying beat before the noisy and somewhat merit-free Sugarcube.  At least from here, Damage represents an improvement in that it mainly drifts along aimlessly with occasional distant guitar rattle.  The noisy, distorted Deeper Into Movies really works well in a ragged, Sonic Youth kind of way.

No Yo La Tengo album is complete without Georgia Hubley doing her spooked-out Mo Tucker routine, and this album doesn't disappoint.  Shadows features Jonathan Marx on tastefully muted trumpet, and the album finishes with her cover of sixties tune My Little Corner of the World.  But perhaps it's the amount of variety contained here that appeals so much to critics.  We get a perfect Belle & Sebastian facsimile on Stockholm Syndrome (though Kaplan can't resist a short distorted guitar solo), yet minutes later they do a garage rock version of The Beach Boys' Little Honda which wouldn't shame the Jesus and Mary Chain, followed up by a sleepy alt-country instrumental Green Arrow, complete with chirping crickets!

The finer tracks are towards the end - the pedal steel-enhanced One PM Again has the breezy, relaxed quality of Lou Reed's Coney Island Baby, while The Lie and How We Told It has a classic 90s YLT sound, a standoffish, muted VU atmosphere and is the equal of anything off their last 3 or 4 albums and definitely the finest track here.  Of course they don't stay put here, they follow this up with the cheesy bossa nova of Center of Gravity and the noisy endurance test of Spec Bebop, before recovering with the penultimate track, the shoegaze-y We're an American Band.

But overall, it's very much a hit and miss album, and if it was the first YLT album I heard I probably wouldn't be arsed checking any more out.  The moral of the story.  The critics, what the f**k do they know??

Album Review: Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura

Yo La Tengo open 1995's Electr-O-Pura with the familiar Velvet-y groove of Decora, Georgia Hubley's ghostly vocals combining well with Ira Kaplan's guitar work.  The album takes a darker, heavier turn on the very Sonic Youth-like Flying Lesson, Kaplan seriously impressing on growling guitar riffs, which build in intensity then unravel to a full-on guitar work out, like an even more ragged Stooges.  The pace totally drops for the lazy stum of The Hour Grows Late before picking back on Tom Courtenay.  The album lurches back and forth between heavy and light, the spooky Paul Is Dead and gorgeous Pablo and Andrea do a mellow lazy groove in a way only Yo La Tengo can excel at, the latter featuring a searing guitar solo from Kaplan.

The Ballad of Red Buckets has a real Thurston Moore feel to it, while Don't Say A Word has a classic, almost Joni Mitchell melody to it.  The album is not without its annoying moments, I could do without the pointless noise of False Ending and annoying organ of False Alarm, and as for the cacophony of Attack On Love... give it a rest.  But the rest of the album is, in the main, very fine.  Bitter End is like Lou Reed dragged backwards through a noisy nineties murk.  Quite the enjoyable album then, in a kind of pointy-headed Sonic Youth kind of way.

Yo La Tengo - Painful

Yo La Tengo’s sixth album, released in 1993 represented something of a shift from their previous material.  Less reliant on song-based, sub Velvets grooves, initially the album can feel a little hard to get into, on first listen there is little that jumps out at you.  The album has two versions of Big Day Coming, and the version that opens the album is kind of dreamy and drippy, with little happening over seven minutes.  The album picks up from here on, some very catchy melodies are given a pleasing skew with some wonderfully distorted guitar work on tracks like From A Motel 6 and Double Dare.

There are still traces of their earlier Velvet-y ballads, Nowhere Near and a cover of The Only Ones' The Whole of the Law have  perfectly pitched sleepy vocals from Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan.  Later, A Worrying Thing has a lazy summer feel to it.  But what the album really has to recommend it is the forefront and centre guitars of Kaplan on tracks like I Was The Fool Beside You, the second, heavy version of Big Day Coming, and valedictory instrumental closer I Heard You Looking. 

Though the album is less instant and alluring than May I Sing With Me, on prolonged listening little details begin to reveal themselves, making you come back time and time again for more.

Album Review: Yo La Tengo - May I Sing With Me

Yo La Tengo released their fifth album, May I Sing With Me in 1992.  Opening track Detouring Americans With Guns starts out as a gentle strum before transforming into a grunted-up Velvet Underground style strum, with Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley resplendent on bored, alienated vocals.  Upside-Down is like Lou Reed fronting the Jesus and Mary Chain, roaring along, hitting the mark perfectly in two and a half minutes.  It's a great opening salvo, but after this all doesn't quite go to plan.  Mushroom Cloud of Hiss is the first of TWO nine minute tracks, and it proves to be an abrasive slog, like VU's I Heard Her Call My Name stretched out.

Swing For Life is one of a couple of downtempo, brooding tracks in the vein Sonic Youth's less intense material (a good thing).  Hubley delivers a perfectly pitched vocal on a reasonably sparse track, which allows Kaplan to spring forth with some fine guitar licks.  Five-Cornered Drone uses a similar guitar tone to great effect, this time with Kaplan taking vocal duties, while Some Kinda Fatigue is almost like Echo and the Bunnymen meets Husker Du!

The downcast, desolate Always Something is one of the the strongest tracks, helped by a fine backing vocal from bassist James McNew.  After this the album takes a turn, not necessarily for the better.  The barrelling 86-second Blowout is exactly that, and Out The Window huffs puffs without really hitting home, despite Hubley's fine drumming.  Sleeping Pills is nine minutes of experimental, keyboard drones before the album finishes with the understated, yet charming Satellite.

So an uneven, hit and miss album, which I think is the key to its charm.