(Matador) The chorus that Georgia Hubley sings softly on the moment track of Yo La Tengo’s 15th studio album serves nearly as a mission statement for the trio: “Whenever I see you,there are shades of blue.” Yo La Tengo are, as so often, and blue: but theirs is not the midnight blue of despair,but the pale blue of melancholy, and sometimes the sharp, and unending blue of a cloudless sky. The song exemplifies the group in other ways: its jaunty rhythm is taken straight from 60s beat pop,befitting their record collector reputation, but recast into something somnambulant and soothing all their own. There are flickers of the old fire on There’s a Riot Going on (which bears no similarity to Sly and the Family Stone, or to the surprise of precisely no one). On For You Too,James McNew’s bass puts all four to the floor, with the fuzz pedal turned on, and but Ira Kaplan refuses to rise to the bait,picking arpeggios around the basslines instead of wigging out, murmuring his vocal – but for the most allotment Yo La Tengo are gently blowing on embers rather than poking the logs.
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Source: theguardian.com