Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 11/09/06
Label: Matador

Many bands have been influenced by The Velvet Underground, but few have actually been The Velvet Underground. Yo La Tengo fall into both camps. Not only impersonating Andy Warhol's house band (a passable turn in the aptly-named 1996 Valerie Solanas biopic, "I Shot Andy Warhol") but also emulating their heroes' schizophrenic style. So while Lou Reed and John Cale could flit from "Venus In Furs", "Sunday Morning" and "Black Angels Death Song" on the same slab of vinyl, the Hoboken-born, three-piece of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew also oscillate between free jazz madness and bubblegum brevity.

None more so than on "I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass" (surely title of the year?), the trio's 11th studio album, which manages to sandwich 12 tracks of sonic perfection between two ten-minute excursions into experimental dissonance (the opening "Pass The Hatchet I Think I'm Goodkind" and closing "The Story Of Yo La Tengo") and a seven-minute mediation of water noises and guitar skronk ("Daphina").

Despite these moments of controlled indulgence, this is not a particularly 'difficult' album. The purely 'pop' moments (of which there are many) are commercial enough for Girls Aloud fans, while the occasional descents into outright indie naffness that blighted 2003's "Summer Sun" have been totally eradicated. From the brass-led bop of "Beanbag Chair" and the furious garage band punk of "I Should Have Known Better" and "Watch Out For Me Ronnie" to the quiet and classy "Black Flowers", "I Am Not Afraid…" is an album for everyone. If it doesn't propel them to the top of the charts, at the very least, you can imagine half of these tunes soundtracking a Wes Anderson indie movie starring Natalie Portman and one of Macaulay Culkin's little brothers.

But it's the slow songs - Yo La Tengo's forte since 2000's still peerless "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out" - that are the real dazzlers - in particular "I Feel Like Going Home" and "Song For Mahila". The former counterpoints heart-rending strings with Hubley's almost Teutonic vocal, the latter could be a downbeat excerpt from Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk". Other highlights include the title-alluding "Mr Tough", which gives the playground bully a funky what for on the dancefloor, and the psychedelic fug of "Room Got Heavy" which rides a mantra-like flow of bongos, organs and paranoia.

If this sounds a bit all over the place, then that's because it is. Each track is a virtual polar opposite of that which preceded it, but somehow the whole album hangs together. That the Tengo can employ their vast encyclopaedic knowledge of modern music and still come out soulful is what separates them from a band like, say, Primal Scream. All in, this is probably their best work. They might not look like heavyweight contenders, but "I Am Not Afraid Of You…" is fighting talk.

    by Adam Webb