22nd April - Yo La Tengo's I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One

Artist – Album: Yo La Tengo – I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One

Released:  22^nd April 1997

Sounds Like: Shimmering indie greatness

Whatever it is, Yo La Tengo have got it*. Being one of the music’s principal purveyors of hazy indie noise pop, they have spent the last twenty-seven years releasing consistently excellent and highly influential albums. One reviewer at the time went as far as to call them The Greatest Band in the Universe, which may be going slightly over the top, but they could well be the greatest band on this planet at least. They may never have troubled the charts but they seem perfectly happy simply keep putting out gorgeous music regardless. Which is just great.

There’s plenty of contenders, but I’d like to forward I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One as the best album they’ve released in the nearly three decades since their debut. It has it all – a blissed out adventure into an eclectic variety of genres, from shoegaze (‘Damage’)to bossa-nova (‘Centre of Gravity’) to noisy power pop (‘Sugarcube’); wonderful takes on cover songs (the feedback driven version of the Beach Boys’ ‘Little Honda’ and the lovely closing acoustic ditty ‘My Little Corner of the World’); wry lyrics delivered as a hushed almost-whisper on gorgeous love songs such as ‘Autumn Sweater’.

Alongside the recently reviewed Guided By Voices and Pavement, Yo La Tengo have been one of the driving forces in the direction of alternative rock in recent times. Their warm blend of noise rock and poppy melody has seen them taken to heart by critics and gushing fans alike. They’ve got it alright.**

* This was a clever pun – “yo la tengo” is “I got it” in Spanish you see. Check Google translate. Gosh, I’m so funny...

** I made the same pun again. This was a bad idea, as really you shouldn’t repeat jokes. I might not actually be that funny after all.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Return to Hot Chicken – 1:38

2.       Moby Octopad – 5:48

3.       Sugarcube – 3:21

4.       Damage – 4:39

5.       Deeper into Movies – 5:23

6.       Shadows – 2:27

7.       Stockholm Syndrome – 2:51

8.       Autumn Sweater – 5:18

9.       Little Honda – 3:07

10.   Green Arrow – 5:43

11.   One PM Again -2:25

12.   The Lie and How We Told It – 3:19

13.   Center of Gravity – 2:42

14.   Spec Bebop – 10:40

15.   We’re an American Band – 6:25

16.   My Little Corner of the World – 2:24

Listen to ‘Autumn Sweater’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIkMeaAfIRw

3rd Feb - The Pains of Being Pure At Heart's The Pains of Being Pure At Heart

Artist – Album: The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains of Being Pure At Heart

Released:  3^rd February 2009

Sounds Like: It’s 20 years older than it actually is.

Amongst many other equally great and important things, the early nineties brought us The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Sonic the Hedgehog and shoegaze music – the latter so named because the main players would often spend a lot of their stage time staring at their feet. It’s best proponents included the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive, who all managed to combine beautiful layers of distorted guitars with mumbled vocals that followed catchy pop melodies.

Back then Kip Berman, Peggy Wang and the rest of The Pains of Being Pure At Heart would still have been in some New York primary school, playing with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures and probably yet to even hear of an effects pedal, yet somehow their self-titled debut authentically feels like a forgotten album from that time. It’s not so much an update of that older sound but a continuation of it, as if it never went away.

From the rousing ‘Come Saturday’ to the giddy ‘A Teenager in Love’, this record is an accomplished and confident first attempt. Chief single ‘Young Adult Friction’ emerges from the distortion to become a hook-laden anthem and went on to be named as one of the best tracks of 2009 in various end-of-year lists. The second half is slightly weaker, with the less memorable tunes, but all in all the future (or their take on the past) looks promising for The Pains of Being Pure At Heart.

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Contender – 2:40

2.       Come Saturday – 3:17

3.       Young Adult Friction – 4:07

4.       This Love Is Fucking Right! – 3:15

5.       The Tenure Itch – 3:45

6.       Stay Alive – 4:56

7.       Everything with You – 2:59

8.       A Teenager in Love – 3:24

9.       Hey Paul – 2:03

10.   Gentle Sons – 4:32 

Listen to ‘Young Adult Friction’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4itzHRpltQ