Many Yo La Tengo fans suspected the band's best days were behind them after Summer Sun. Even the title was a bummer. In my mind I saw it as Setting Sun, and later thought of Around the Sun, both of which brought to mind autumn twilight, a slow fade into darkness, and the onset of a deadening winter. And while the music wasn't terrible (and had at least an enjoyable ambience), it sounded like it came from a band that was locked into something-- like Yo La Tengo had found a measured style they could tweak until they got bored of the band and called it quits. "If this is truly the next step in Yo La Tengo's move toward some abstract concept like artistic maturity," Eric Carr wrote in his Pitchfork review, "I don't think I want to stick around for the conclusion."
Hearing their newest record, I'm hoping Eric hasn't left the building. From the opening bass growl of "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind", it's a new morning on planet YLT. Right off, Georgia Hubley and James McNew are thriving on a riff and Ira Kaplan has his meanest distortion pedal out of hock kicking up clouds of noise because he can. And I'd forgotten how cool he can sound when singing. Here he's Joe Walsh bragging about a fully stocked medicine cabinet and the processing of his voice is perfect, with flanged midrange to accentuate his knowing calm. But Yo La Tengo wouldn't truly be back if they stayed in one place, and the following "Beanbag Chair" is a complete 180, a cuddly piano-driven ditty with velvety harmonies that wants nothing more than to find its way onto a prospective girlfriend's mixtape.
And that's the story here. Yo La Tengo have always sounded more in love with music than pretty much any indie band going, and they've let their diverse interests settle into a comfortable and productive place conducive to growing good songs. Everything they've done well in the past is found on here somewhere, even a couple of the gossamer mood pieces that previously threatened to smother their career like a damp wool blanket. An album of songs like "I Feel Like Going Home" might be trouble, but here it sounds just fine: There's lovely and subtle processing behind the piano and violin, and Georgia Hubley's voice has become a remarkably supple instrument. It's a real trick when you have her limited range to avoid sounding distant and bored, but completely inhabits her leads. The jaunty "The Weakest Part" hits the same sweet spot. It could be a nice Belle & Sebastian song, with its bouncy piano, easy harmonies, and taut construction.
The production is simple but not minimal. It feels overtly "classic" more than anything, with arrangements and instrumentation deliberately plucked from a wide range of rock and r&b sides from the past half-century. The horns backing James McNew's and Kaplan's falsettos on "Mr. Tough" are ladled from Memphis soul stew, punctuating the playfully phrased dancefloor challenge to a bully. "The Room Got Heavy", with its bongos and Martin Rev organ, is part skuzzy 70s-NYC racket, but Hubley humanizes and prettifies the drone and turns it into something approaching a song. The long instrumental "Daphnia", probably inspired by Yo La Tengo's now substantial movie-scoring side career, is more engaging than it has any right to be. It's just a guitar plucking a couple notes over and over while some crackly sound effects rustle in the background, and a creepy piano line ghosted from a John Carpenter score. And then, the scrappy "Watch out for Me Ronnie", with Kaplan half-yelling through a busted microphone, sounds like a lost Nuggets classic having a drink with the closing theme from "WKRP in Cincinnati".
Yes, "Black Flowers" is underwritten and drab, and "Songs for Mahila" is pretty enough but just sort of floats out the window, but hey, there are 15 songs and 77 minutes of music here, and it's not a perfect record. But rather than sounding overstuffed, I Am Not Afraid of You... sounds like a double album in the 70s sense, a chance for the band to stretch out and try everything in their repertoire even if the end result is a little shaggy. Really, this kind of committed and sincere musical sampler is the most natural place in the world for Yo La Tengo to be, but it wasn't clear if they'd ever find their way back.
