Fade

Just close your eyes and listen—actually, don’t close your eyes. You might fall asleep, albeit in the coolest way possible, to legendary indie band Yo La Tengo’s “Fade.” Their latest album—also, their first since “Popular Songs” (2009) and 13th overall—consists of a dreamy set of sometimes catchy, sometimes endearing tracks that leave the listener in a happily-induced daze.

The album starts off with arguably its best track, the nearly 7 minute long jam session that is “Ohm.” Husband-and-wife team Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley sing lush harmonies over a catchy guitar refrain, “Sometimes the bad guys come out on top / Sometimes the good guys lose / We try not to lose our hearts / Not to lose our minds.” Throughout the album, they maintain a personal quality that lyrically goes along with their soft, fuzzed-out tunes. On the next track, “Is That Enough?” Kaplan quietly admits that, “It’s unimportant / As far as I can tell / But what’s important / I can’t see so well,” over a simple guitar melody with the mellifluous flourishes of an orchestra to back him up.

Another highlight comes in the tender number “Cornelia and Jane,” sung by Hubley. The song is a whispered plea to a friend who may be aging and losing themselves when it comes to character or memory; she sings, “Hear them whispering, they analyze / But no one knows what’s lost in your eyes / Sending the message, it doesn’t get to you / How can we care for you?” Hubley’s soothing yet stricken falsetto croon is accompanied by gentle bass, guitar and understated horns in the background that bring a truly sympathetic tone to “Fade,” in continuation of one of its themes of change coming about within different aspects of one’s life.

One note that I would make to listeners who wish to appreciate the album fully would be to play it through earbuds or headphones. Many of the songs on this record are intricately coordinated together, and these intricacies are much more easily noticed when they are not simply being played as background music. The gentler but emotionally significant riffs bring a subtle superiority to the album that one may not notice initially.

As a whole, Yo La Tengo has accomplished one thing: even if “Fade” is not the most innovative collection of work, or the best of their musical output, they’ve made a very solid effort that should stand the test of time for fans. The album shows great vulnerability in its lyrics in addition to a mature approach to love that values trust even during periods of fear, and acknowledges that bad things happen sometimes, but it is possible to overcome them. The band says it best themselves in the song “Point of It,” when they tell us, “Say that we’re afraid, say that we were wrong / Maybe that’s ok, if we’re not so strong / That’s the point of it.”

 

Rating: 3.5 stars