I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One by Yo La Tengo

"Return To Hot Chicken," "Moby Octopad," "Sugarcube," "Damage," "Deeper Into Movies," "Shadows," "Stockholm Syndrome," "Autumn Sweater," "Little Honda," "One PM Again," "Center Of Gravity," "We Are An American Band," and "My Little Corner Of The World." You probably thought I was giving the track listing there for a second. But I wasn't. I was listing the songs that kick my ass. Every song on this album is amazing with the possible exception of "Spec Bepop," which really isn't bad. It just kind of goes on a little longer than it should have.

Is this album too long? Heavens, no. Isn't it only like 45 minutes? *goes to check Google*

Christ, the album is 70-minutes long? Wow. That is like 25 minutes of material that I feel like has been squished down. Believe me, if an album drags on, I will say it. I am not heaping unusual praise on this album. I genuinely just assumed it was of normal length. Because it packs a punch. It quite literally has some of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. Wanna know how long "Return To Hot Chicken" is? It is like a minute-and-a-half. And somehow it feels like a full statement. How they manage to do this with so little time and no vocals, I am uncertain. My guess is that they have gotten good at making shit really interesting from being a shoegaze band and now that they turned to a more rock-based sound, they are able to create beauty effortlessly. That is what I would dare posit.

In any case, this is an astounding album. As pretty as it is mesmerizing as it is glorious.

Painful by Yo La Tengo

Oh, God. I do not think I have ever listened to an album that seemed so fully put together on first listen. I was at work when I put it in, and I felt like I was floating away when the beautiful wash of "Big Day Coming" drifted through my skull. Feeling like I was riding on the tail of a shooting star, I shot through the night sky at a pace that somehow manages to be both neck-breaking and sluggish. After listening to this album only twice, I added it to my top 20 favourite albums list. I am not sure if I would still stand by that, but I do genuinely love this album.

Shoegaze should not be allowed to be this beautiful. And SO interesting! Shoegaze is almost stereotypically boring, right? Actually, I really like shoegaze, but still! This is one of the prettiest and most cohesive albums out there.

I have a tradition of starting to listen to the album again as I write the review. And this is making it very difficult to write the review. Writing is a fairly grounding process. It tends to pull you down to earth. Free flow is actually much more difficult than it sounds. Particularly when listening to this album. Am I wrong to call it Beethoven's 9th Symphony? Or at least the indie rock equivalent? It is unsettling how gorgeous this album is. I definitely see it as being a lot like Loveless by My Bloody Valentine in that I really could not tell you the names of many of the songs. They all just seem to blend into one another like the whole album is bleeding. How Yo La Tengo takes such long guitar riffs and crafts them into such a beautiful and enlivening album, I shan't ever know.

Give it a listen. I would put it up with Loveless.

A Clusterfuck Of Phases

After I finished up with my Songs In The Key Of Life phase, something happened. Something weird. And I really did not and do not know how to approach it on this blog, so I decided to start with an introductory post.

In chronological order, I went through the following phases: Painful by Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One by Yo La Tengo, Drums And Wires by XTC, Parklife by Blur, Animals by Pink Floyd, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by Pink Floyd, Wakin' On A Pretty Daze by Kurt Vile, and Hello Nasty by the Beastie Boys. But, here is the thing: Almost all of these happened pretty well simultaneously. Because of how close they were, I really did not have time to finish or fully digest very many of them. In fact, the only ones that I plan to write reviews for here soon are Painful, I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, Parklife, and Animals. That's right; as of yet, out of eight, only four of them have emerged fully victorious.

Now, before I start writing the reviews about those four, I feel it necessary to say something briefly about the other four. All four of these seem to follow the same pattern. In the case of Drums And Wires, I know the first six songs better than the rest. In the case of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, I know the first six songs better than the rest. In the case of Wakin' On A Pretty Daze, I know the first three songs better than the rest. In the case of Hello Nasty, I know the first seven songs better than the rest. What is clearly happening is that I have not yet listened to them enough completely to put them on here (by the way, I'd bet my boots that Drums And Wires is certainly going to be the next entry).

Now, allow me to write the other four.