Welcome back to the quietest loud band – or the loudest quiet band – in the world. Their 17th studio album is so quintessentially Yo La Tengoish: Ira Kaplan’s squalling guitars and murmured vocals and Georgia Hubley’s still, introspective ballads are both here in glorious effect. This time the band recorded near-live – the basis of most of the nine songs is Kaplan, drummer/vocalist Hubley and bassist James McNew playing in the room together – and what is striking is the contrast between Kaplan and Hubley.
Even when Kaplan is wringing his guitar for noise – on the opening trio of Sinatra Drive Breakdown, Fallout and Tonight’s Episode – it sounds as though Hubley is playing with brushes, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, not just in terms of her minimal use of fills, but volume. That is perhaps the biggest difference between YLT in 2023 and 1993; back then, she was hammering her kit, as if to compete.
Mortality pops up: “Prepare to die,” Kaplan cautions on Until It Happens. “The pain creeps in anyhow / You feel alone / Friends are gone,” Hubley offers on the layered, electronic Miles Away. Best of all is Hubley’s Aselstine, with its single-line summation of grief: “I can’t sell your books, though you asked me to,” she sings, nearly whispering. It’s not perfect – the title track is seven and a half minutes you might better use boiling eggs – but it is its own small wonder, as every Yo La Tengo album seems to be.