Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, Matador
I really didn’t want to like this album. Yo La Tengo’s weak past two efforts had me primed for another plodding joint of down-tempo pap, jazzy in all the worst ways. The trio let me down twice in concert this summer, and once the summer before. Despite all the years they’ve spent soundtracking my life, I was wholly prepared to furiously rip into this, their twelfth studio album in 20 years and eleventh in my collection. I saw the obese 78-minute track list with 11-minute songs to open and close, I downloaded the advance song posted on their website, and both had me fuming, ready to excoriate.
But the more I listen to this album, the more confused I get: Beat Your Ass is actually listenable, wildly eclectic and surprisingly good.
The album sprawls across all the sounds the band has ever played with, from the pounding but never tiresome noise-rock jamming of opener “Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind” to the melodic fuzz of “Shoot to Kill.” For every lame heart-on-their-cardigan-sleeves wimp-pop track like “Beanbag Chair,” there’s a tender, gut-wrenching ballad like “Black Flowers” or “I Feel Like Going Home” dropping light accents of plaintive guitar feedback over quiet piano lines, horns and strings. They even succeed in new arenas like blues-punk on “Watch Out For Me Ronnie” and relight their old flame for German experimental rock bands Kraftwerk and Neu! like Stereolab at their mid-’90s peak.
Beat Your Ass is Yo La Tengo’s most expansive, adventurous and straight-up quality record in a full decade, and though it’s not the instant classic 1997’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One was, it’s still one of the most interesting albums you’ll hear this year, and maybe one of the best. I’m still too happily confused to tell.
—Chris Norton
The Rapture, Pieces Of The People We Love, Universal
Since 2001 the New York-based rock movement known as dance-punk has been one of the most talked about and trendy genres in the indie circuit. The Rapture are largely to thank for that. The band formed in 1998 and toured relentlessly until their 2003 album Echoes earned them album-of-the-year honors from hipster webzine Pitchforkmedia. Perhaps suffering from the pressure to duplicate that record’s magic, follow-up Pieces of the People We Love is a smoother, tighter album that, disappointingly, lacks the visceral punch and excitement of Echoes.
Kicking off with “Don Gon Do It”, it’s apparent that Pieces is a much more polished album than Echoes. Part of their debut’s beauty was how imperfect it was; vocalist/guitarist Luke Jenner’s screamed vocals seem like gasps for air and his puncturing guitar stabs are incredibly sloppy. That feeling of spontaneity isn’t present here, and tracks like the monotonous, Joy Division-aping “First Gear” suffer for it.
The album makes a come-back, however, with “The Devil,” a synth and bass-driven tune so catchy that the second-rate lyrics can be ignored. First single “W.A.Y.U.H.” follows, complete with the group’s trademark overuse of the cowbell. While danceable, it feels forced and overproduced, a fact most likely attributable to their break from their old production duo the DFA. With the exception of “The Sound,” which appears as enticingly sloppy as anything from their debut, the rest of the album’s ten tracks lack excitement. (Tramadol) The album never closes out with a bang, it only fizzles.
While the Rapture were never truly innovators—their sound combines many common 70s and 80s influences—they’ve undeniably rested on their laurels here. While Pieces of the People We Love isn’t a bad album by any means, it just doesn’t measure up to the exciting Echoes.
—Justin Hunter Scott
