Yo La Tengo
Ride the Tiger

Yo La Tengo represent one of the cornerstones of alternative music for twenty years now. Thanks to their expressiveness, their unparalleled curriculum vitae compared to other indie scene bands, their attachment to the pure genuineness of rock'n roll, their ability to return to the '90s scene without succumbing to the crap done by various groups at the sight of banknotes, they have managed to maintain the fame obtained from small, but memorable masterpieces accumulated in twenty years of an alt-rock never lacking in originality.

These Americans prefer to make rock without frills. Pure, without much virtuosic messing around. But let's go back to the origins of the Hoboken group, that debut as technically dull as it was musically bright. "Ride the Tiger", dated 1986, is the debut we're talking about, a calm and carefree album. A fun rock that never goes beyond the physical; sober ballads, light and carefree.

I will not attempt to tell you everything about this album, but only the memorable grooves of the object in question. The pivot on which the entire album spins is Kaplan's versatility, overall the brain of the band, the body of Yo La Tengo. Talent elevated to the cube in "The Way Some People Die"; the guitar cheerfully wanders alone over vigorous pop melodies, while the voice, neither cerebral nor too traditional, which at times reminds me of Jagger from "Let It Bleed," fills the sound best without making it bare. "Forest Green" takes us back to the origins of alt-rock; the typically Cure beginning (I refer to "Pornography"), the vocal crescendo a la Stipe, and completing the picture an enveloping psychedelic blanket that this time hints at callbacks to Television and (in some ways) P.I.L. The guitar reaches its artistic peak in the frantic and quirky alternative of "The Cone of Silence" and "The Evil That Men Do"; a guitar arrangement that certainly isn't perfect, but characterizes the artistic genuineness of Kaplan & Co. Down moments are felt in "Big Sky", a cover of the Kinks, which doesn't convince me. But if there are worn-out and cobblestone-filled paths, they open up to us boundless freshly paved highways.

Just think of what the group is capable of doing in "The Pain of Pain" or "The Empty Pool"; psychedelic allure, Meat Puppets, and a pinch of melancholy. And if you listen closely, we could even say that certain groups today (to name one, Death Cab) would never have existed without Yo La Tengo. Calm lightweight rock, not very noteworthy, leaves room for the noise experimentalism of "Screaming Dead Balloons", interspersed with great hallucinogenic walls; a particularly incisive bass and a sound indecisive between fear and anger. "Living The Country", with a typically Nick Drake guitar, engraves a small pendant with a colorful stone signature by Kaplan, concluding the first chapter of the friends from Hoboken.

A talent here not fully stretched, but visible to the naked eye. Potential and versatility never fully expressed until the masterpiece, dated 1997, at least as far as I am concerned.

Yo La Tengo. And well done Kaplan. Fly out.