Five tracks into I Am Not Afraid- you hear the song ‘Black Flowers.’ Whatever you were doing, whatever you were thinking and whatever you were feeling you just stop all of it and for three minutes and 38 seconds you are somewhere else, thinking something else, feeling something else. It’s just one of those songs. It arrests the world and at the same time opens you up to it. Pure beauty, sublime and all those other words one uses when one encounters something indescribable. Yo La Tengo’s 12th album, or so – its’s hard to keep track with a band that can record an album in the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee – does and it all the things that indie fans have come to expect from the Hoboken, New Jersey-based trio. I Am Not Afraid- is similar to their 1990 effort, Fakebook. The big difference is that, instead of wrestling their influences into the Yo La Mold, I Am Not Afraid- pays homage to the variety of records in their home collections. ‘Mr. Tough’ sounds like Yo La covering Prince. ‘Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind’ sounds like Yo La covering George Harrison. ‘Daphnia’ sounds like Yo La covering Vladimir Cosma. A perfect album.

RELATED POSTS:

No related posts.