No matter how you look at it, we're all
aging. Some of us take it with grace; others, like me, take it with
sense of melodrama and dread. When I listen Yo La Tengo, a band that
really hit its stride in the late 90s (ten years into their career),
I'm reminded that I still have some things to look forward
to, that it's the small comforts that get us out of bed, day after
day. Yo La Tengo have also come to define a certain ideal of love
that I'm sure I'm not alone in admiring: the husband and wife duo,
working out the nuances of their relationship through the medium of
delicate guitar-pop. Romantic relationships, if we're lucky enough to
have them, are full of negotiations and risks; our quirks don't
necessarily change, but at times it seems like we're in a process of
refinement and there's no easy way out.
But enough bourgeois sentiment. The
thing I love about Yo La Tengo, besides their knack for clever hooks
and their clear obsession with feedback, is that they sweat
the small stuff. At first, they appear to be playing it safe--the
word "domestic" often comes to mind. But for Yo La Tengo,
the threats of boredom, oblivion, and insignificance are ever
present. Perhaps that's what makes the small victories of their songs
matter so much.
All of
which is to say that, over the last 26 years, Yo La Tengo have more or less perfected what a
lot of indie artists often miss: a delicate touch, a willingness to
say too little when it seems like everyone wants you to say too much.
Yo La Tengo are often referred to as a band for record collectors,
not simply because of their ability to jump back and forth between
styles and influences, but because they show an appreciation for
restraint: they're wise enough to know that they stand, though a little
off-balance, on the broad shoulders of giants. At least this is what their
new record, Fade,
suggests. More comfortable in tone and sequence than 2009's messy
Popular Songs and less
self-consciously hip than 2006's I'm Not Afraid of You and
I Will Beat Your Ass, Fade
would be a remarkably solid
effort for any other band. For Yo La Tengo it just makes sense. It's not
an event; it's an affirming boost, a much-needed pat on the shoulder.
The album kicks off with the jubilant jangle-pop of "Ohm"
and keeps the tempo pretty high until midway through. But,
unsurprisingly, it's the latter, more sombre part of the album that
finds Yo La Tengo doing what they've done best throughout the last
decade. Songs like "The Point of It" and the gorgeous
"Cornelia and Jane" are impossibly charming, and flirt with
the same understated longing that defined And Then Nothing
Turned Itself Inside-Out (2000).
I'm tempted to say something about this being the best Yo La Tengo
album in a decade, but I'm not at all sure that it's true. What I can
say, without hesitating, is that some of us needed this album to get
through another long winter and only Yo La Tengo could have made it.
