Jersey-based indie band Yo La Tengo's newest album, Popular Songs, serves as a fairly solid addition to their already extensive repertoire of quiet rock.
Known for their unique ability to mesh gentle melodies, twinkling synth and powerful, minimalist lyrics, Yo La Tengo demonstrates their greatest strength - their ability to create successful albums without changing much of their original sound. Fittingly, Popular Songs is chock-full of the typical soft sadness - or is it sad softness? - that the band has been perfecting for decades.
Popular Songs opens with the single "Here To Fall," a trippy, percussion-laden track that is at once unusually heavy and typically Yo La Tengo-ian, a paradox that works well as the album's start. With a slightly-psychedelic hook line, drummer/vocalist Georgia Hubley's spectacular work and vocalist/songwriter Ira Kaplan's pointed, repeated lyrics, "Here To Fall" harbors a certain vintage quality.
This not only recalls some of the more popular rock music from the late 1960s and early 1970s, but also Yo La Tengo's earlier tracks such as 1997's "Autumn Sweater," off the band's most famous album, I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One.
"By Two's," Popular Songs' third track, is once again familiar Yo La Tengo territory. Featuring a lullaby-esque melody, tinging cymbals and soothing vocals, "By Two's" could likely sing even the most stubborn insomniac to sleep in minutes. Hubley's voice is hushed and haunting, and plays perfectly with Kaplan's flute-like, repeated hook line.
Popular Songs continues to time-trip a bit with its sixth track, "If It's True," which plays like a catchy combination of 1950s doo-wop and early Belle & Sebastian. Married couple Hubley and Kaplan charm the listener with a lovely duet, cementing "If It's True" as the album's poppiest and most engaging song.
"More Stars Than There Are In Heaven," the album's tenth track, is a 10-minute opus featuring bassist James McNew's quiet but steady line, delicate keyboard playing and eerie, echoing vocals.
While an overlong epic is not an unusual offering on a Yo La Tengo album - Popular Songs, for instance, features three of them - "More Stars" is one of Popular Songs' most successful efforts, providing the album with a powerful piece of music and a perfect counterpart to some of the harder tracks.
Popular Songs is by no means a perfect album, and, with the exception of "More Stars Than There Are In Heaven," begins to show cracks by its second half. The album's ninth track, "When It's Dark," is bland and dull, if seemingly superficially cute. Similarly, the second to last track, "The Fireside," drags the album down with its lengthy play time and uninteresting melody.
By "And the Glitter is Gone," the album's indulgent, pretentious conclusion that is rife with unintelligible, blaring guitar riffs and obtuse drumwork, the early magic seems to have dissipated somewhat.
Small concerns aside, however, Popular Songs is an overall enjoyable potpourri of the indie/pop/rock sound that has characterized Yo La Tengo albums since 1986's Ride the Tiger.
While change and progression often fuel a band's growth and success, it seems that Yo La Tengo has an unbreakable niche that will keep them going for years to come.
