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Electr-O-Pura
Home > Complete List of "x-z" Artists > Yo La Tengo > Item 5
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Electr-O-Pura
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by Yo La Tengo
Sales Rank: 163347
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$200.00
At Amazon
on 9-8-2008.
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This review is from: Electr-O-Pura (Audio CD)
While some albums can grab you and beat you over the head with their brilliance upon first listen, others take more time to appreciate, slowly revealing new details with each listen until you're fully able to grasp their entirety. "Electr-O-Pura," however, is that rare album that manages to do both. The day after getting this album I played it five times in a row straight through, and I've only become more addicted to it since. To say it's like a drug would probably be an understatement: I doubt there's a drug out there with a pull this strong. I thought Sonic Youth were the masters of the guitar-driven noise-rock soundscape, but until you've heard Yo La Tengo you don't know the half of it. The array of mind-bending guitar sounds that Ira Kaplan creates is nothing short of staggering, but his endless creativity and dizzying technical proficiency are only the beginning of what makes this such a great album. "Electr-O-Pura" is more about texture than anything else, as guitars, voices, and rhythm section intertwine, all the sounds dancing around each other without any ever achieving supremacy. Instead, the elements all coalesce to form some of the most sublime, fascinating sounds that a rock band has ever produced. I know I may not be doing the best job of describing it, but one listen to the jaw-dropping "The Ballad Of Red Buckets" should nicely illustrate what I mean. It's not necessarily the album's best song (more on that later), but I do feel it best exemplifies its overall sound. If that makes sense. What's perhaps most amazing about this album is that while the songs all hang together in a coherent whole, most of them are simultaneously able to establish their own identities, as Yo La Tengo experiment wildly without ever abandoning their song-oriented approach. The result is a batch of tunes that are readily accessible, instantly memorable and enduring in their appeal. There are so many classics here it's a daunting task to list them all, but here goes nothing. "Decora" is transcendent in its utter gorgeousness, as Georgia Hubley's ethereal vocals float over a vast expanse of shimmering guitar noise. The following "Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)," by contrast, is darker and harder-edged, with Ira Kaplan's vocals an ominous whisper and the guitars much sparser, at least until the two prolonged freakouts towards the end. Between them, the two songs present a study in the dichotomy between light and dark that would do King Crimson proud. The forceful, up-tempo "Tom Courtenay" is probably the catchiest offering here, propelled by a head-bobbing hook and some dense, almost metallic riffage. "Paul Is Dead" is a quietly minimal piece, but the "Ooh-Ooh-Ooh's" in the background make it downright mesmerizing. "False Alarm" is a major curveball, imbuing the album's typical noise-rock inclinations with a dirty, bluesy sound complete with organs and distorted, swaggering vocals. "(Straight Down to the) Bitter End" is fast and furious, with snatches of electrifying guitar distortion scratching at the surface as the drums thump along heavily in the background. "My Heart's Reflection" is a woozy, swooning piece whose slow pace and mellow tone only partly conceal its powerful psychotropic properties. But wait, there's more! Not content just to warp your mind with towering guitar-led onslaughts, the band also go the guiet route with the stripped-down "The Hour Grows Late" and "Don't Say a Word (Hot Chicken #2), which consist of little more than acoustic guitar, hushed vocals, and a smattering of keys. The energy of the album is somewhat muted on these songs to be sure, but it's certainly not absent. In my humble opinion, though, Yo La Tengo saved the best of "Electr-O-Pura" for last in the form of the nine-minute "Blue Line Swinger," which has quickly become one of my favorite tunes of all time. "Blue Line Swinger" is a frightening juggernaut of a song, starting slowly before building steadily into an epic freakout of earth-shaking proportions. And it only becomes more stunning when Georgia's vocals enter the fray, her childlike innocence serving as the perfect foil for the sonic chaos going on all around her. I listen to tons of different music, and I must say that I've heard few albums that can boast as broad an appeal as "Electr-O-Pura." Rarely can a band combine a flair for the the esoteric with such flawless pop instincts, but Yo La Tengo pull off the trick with ease. It's unfortunate that marvels of craftsmanship like this one don't come along too often, but I guess that fact just means we should appreciate them more.
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Electr-O-Pura
Available from Amazon
Price: $200.00
Updated on 9-8-2008.
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