YO LA TENGO: FADE

GENRE | SCRAPPY
VERDICT | TIME TESTED, INDIE APPROVED
LABEL | MATADOR RECORDS
RELEASE | 1.15.13

Hoboken’s perennial indie rock troubadours have long satisfied their split musical personality by walking a fine line between squealing guitar rock and gentle, ’70s inspired pop rock. So much so that the Jekyll-and-Hyde dichotomy has slowly become the trio’s calling card over the years. So it should come as little surprise that Fade, the trio’s latest offering for Matador Records, is another tasteful balancing act. Equal parts scathing shoegaze and cerebral pop rock sweetness,

Yo La Tengo’s thirteenth record is every bit the atmospheric indie-rock romp longtime fans have come to expect from the underground tastemakers.

The band’s sound is so etched in stone, in fact, that even the absence of long-time producer Roger Moutenot couldn’t take the band out of its pristine sonic element. Album opener “Ohm” is anything but tranquil: instead, it’s a six-minute cut cascading through a sea of distorted, mid-tempo guitar rock. “Well You Better” scales down the raunch in favor of jaunty pop rock , and the ambient “Two Trains” splits the difference between the two. Despite coming up on 30 years in the game,

Fade is another healthy artistic statement from one of the indie world’s most timeless entities.

YO LA TENGO

WED 2.13.13
PARADISE ROCK CLUB
967 COMMONWEALTH AVE.
BOSTON
8PM/18+/$25
@THEREALYLT
THEDISE.COM