I could be wrong, but I believe diversity is an old, old wooden ship that was used in the Civil War era. It's also the stunning brilliance of Yo La Tengo's new album, I Am Not Afraid Of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.
Besides having the best name of any album ever made, the newest effort from the noise-rock band out of Hoboken, N.J., is, to steal another line from Ron Burgundy, breathtaking. I want to be friends with it.
The album somehow manages to make progress with every single note. Even the long-winded opener, "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind," which clocks in at just less than 11 minutes, never gets stale. The same goes for the gorgeous piano ballad "Daphnia" and the closer, "The Story of Yo La Tengo," both of which exceed eight minutes. But the songs are as inventive as they are lengthy.
And although I could be wrong about that wooden ship thing, the latter description of diversity is fact. Every song is a different genre, and there isn't a single misstep in the bunch. There's jangle pop, there's Motown influence, there's new wave. Not since The White Album has a record this sprawling been so effective.
The band has often been called the Velvet Underground of the modern era, and the comparisons are apt. I Am Not Afraid Of You and I Will Beat Your Ass is The Velvet Underground and Nico of this decade. From song to song, the band can go from Ira Kaplan's ripping guitar solos to Georgia Hubley's sensible, string-soaked crooning. And though the band's name is deceivingly Latin, none of the band members are. But the band still gives some love to the culture of its namesake, incorporating congas and syncopated rhythms that could have come from Spanish Harlem.
About that name -- the story's been told many times, but once more couldn't hurt. Growing up a fan of the New York Mets, Kaplan took the name straight out of an anecdote from the team's woeful inaugural season.
Richie Ashburn, the centerfielder for the team, would yell out, "I got it!" only to run into his Venezuelan shortstop, Elio Chacon, who spoke no English. Ashburn figured out how to solve the problem, and the next time he got near Chacon, he yelled "Yo la tengo!" only to collide with left fielder Frank Thomas, who spoke exactly zero Spanish.
Despite the unfortunate origins of the band's name, there are no collisions in I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. There may be an issue with the flow of the album, since every song is so different from the one preceding it, but to hold that against the album would be nitpicking.
Often, when an album is described as "sprawling," it indicates that there's something for everyone, but not everything for everyone.
I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass takes the "sprawling" label and turns it into a compliment. It does indeed have everything for everyone.
Grade: A
-- Reviewed by Kevin Doran
