In their 17th studio album, Yo La Tengo comes back tearing through the noise with songs guaranteed to leave you in a trance. From top to bottom, the New Jersey indie rock band manages to create an atmosphere for the listener to disappear in. It’s shoegaze-y, feedback-driven noise rock, almost psychedelic. Recorded between the summers of 2020 and 2022, prime pandemic years, 

 digs into the sound of the modern human condition.

When listening to this record, you can tell that this band has a special connection. Forty-plus years in the making, Yo La Tengo has crafted a unique and diverse sound since couple Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley formed the band in 1984. From their diverse collection of long-play records to their film instrumental scores, the group has shown their longevity in an ever-changing industry.

Starting with the ambitious seven-minute intro “Sinatra Drive Breakdown,” an addictive, defying bass line and eclectic guitar set the listener in an immediate state of entropy. Kaplan and Hubley harmonize over a haunting melody, “Until we all break / Until we all break / Until we all break down.” In “Fallout,” magnetic melodies and driving electric guitars express the darkness the world holds: “Every day it hurts to look / I’d turn away if only I could,” The record continues to surprise throughout, following with its off putting distortion, dark bass, and intimate vocals in “Tonight’s Episode.” We know they can do noise-rock at this point, but in “Aselestine,” Hubley’s angelic vocals come through along with acoustic guitars yearning for connection.

The album seems to be edging towards a finite end, not of the work itself, but of the world as a whole: “Prepare to die / Prepare yourself while there’s still time.” However, its dire lyrics throughout are consoled by the reassurance of the human impulse to keep on going. The title track presents this best: “This stupid world / it’s killing me / this stupid world / it’s all we have.” We are all doomed, but we’re all in it together; a sentiment known too well by all those who endured the recent pandemic. The final track is similar to the first due in its length and large instrumental section, but instead of being this in-your-face piece, it builds on an ethereal synth with Hubley’s vocals, almost siren-like, soothing the listener into a conclusion. It feels like one of those songs you could listen to forever — it calms both the mind and the soul. After 41 minutes of unpredictable chaos and juxtaposed feelings, this track reflects and invites the listener to start from the beginning.

One might expect a band from the 80s to be irrelevant by 2023, or even the 21st century, but Yo La Tengo shows us with This Stupid World that they’re still ones to watch. Yo La Tengo (Spanish for “I have it,” a name which came from a baseball anecdote from the 1962 season) does indeed still have it.

Yo La Tengo does indeed still have it

 is an ethereal musical piece of work that sits right in the eye of the hurricane. The album represents the second panel in what singer/songwriter Natalie Mering, better known as Weyes Blood, calls a “musical triptych,” which began with her 2019 LP 

 hovers over impending doom, this follow-up record lies right amid the chaos. Gloom isn’t something to fear; it’s something to live through and admire. 

Full of beautiful orchestral arrangements, lush production, and soaring vocals (reminiscent of Carole King and Joni Mitchell, some of Mering’s inspirations), this album makes for an out-of-body listening experience. The chamber and baroque pop influences are prevalent throughout the record; it is incredibly cohesive musically, but never derivative. Some of the songs span up to six minutes, yet the listener is kept engaged through the spellbinding production choices. Layers of vocal harmonies, fairy-tale-like strings, and swirling synths transport the listener into a dream-like simulation. Everything feels abundant, poetic, and intentional. Still, a place where this record falls short is the lack of melodic variety in certain songs, such as “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody” and “Twin Flame.” The instrumentals and production choices make the track interesting, but if it were to be stripped back, some of the core elements of Mering’s usual stellar songwriting seem to be missing.

It is never explicitly mentioned, but the struggles and anxieties of the worldwide pandemic are a theme that stays constant throughout the record. Although Mering couldn’t have predicted what would happen when she started this trilogy, the feelings of uncertainty she explores throughout the work are all too familiar to what most people felt over the past two years. The intro track lets us in first: “Living in the wake of overwhelming changes / We’ve all become strangers.” In “The Worst is Done,” she tackles it head on, “It’s been a long, strange year / Everyone’s sad they lost what they / thought they had,” and expresses her anxieties about the future, “They say the worst is done / But I think the worst has yet to come now.” The tracks are layered with political commentary, a highlight being “Children of the Empire,” a reflection on how the climate crisis, caused by past mistakes, will cause the most harm to future generations: “We’re long gone / In that eternal flame / Trying to break away / From the mess we made.” Mering chooses to constantly use “We” as the primary plural pronoun, which gives the record a communal feel; the listener and artist are one in experiencing this emotional turmoil.

 feels like seeing the reflection of a diamond after digging through the entire mine. The record is one of the most original and cohesive pieces of work from this year, and it does an incredible job of shining some light amongst all the darkness. Mering sings from her experience alone, but she makes the rest of her audience feel a little less lonely. 

Weyes Blood creates a musical kaleidoscope of emotions in her latest

Olivia Barton is an indie folk singer/songwriter from Orlando, Florida, now based in Boston after graduating from Berklee College of Music. 

 is her sophomore album, in which she joins forces with producers Collin Pastore and Jake T. Finch (Lucy Dacus, Bre Kennedy, Hadley Kennary) to create a record layered in pure honesty, tender melodies, and emotional depth.

Barton’s new record feels like reading through her diary entries: she lays out what it feels like to grow into your struggles as a young adult. These are tracks driven by guitar and crisp vocals accompanied with raw lyricism that let the listener into the most vulnerable parts of her life. In her own words, she writes songs about “sad things she never intended to tell strangers.” The album opens with Barton showcasing the mundanity she feels in daily life – all the things she’s supposed to do but doesn’t – backed by a steady guitar and drum beat. She sings “I miss everything about anything I had before now,” carefully narrating how nostalgia seems to consume her as she reaches this point in her life where she’s supposed to be at her “peak,” and relates this sentiment with religious guilt, past trauma, and existentialism.

Barton digs into the struggles of growing up and defining yourself outside of others’ perspectives: “Playing Alone” seems to be the climax of this sentiment: with soft vocals, an atmospheric piano, and clashing sounds that differentiate this track from the rest of the work. “Cartwheel” is a conversation with her inner child: she gives her five-year-old self the nurture she disregarded before – “Light up / tear up / talk more / cartwheel.” The experience of being a musician is another common theme throughout the record: “I think in lyrics / I think in bad songs” in “Baby Pictures,” and “Have you been writing lately?… Nothing on the books yet / Writing is laborious” in “I Don’t Do Anything.” Barton gives us an insider peek into the struggles that come with being an artist, creating an intimate experience with the listener, like old friends who are catching up.

In “Erotic,” a song that was almost never finished, she is at her most vulnerable when she recounts a sexual violation experienced in her youth with someone older. The track is just guitar and vocals as she poetically strips bare and graphically recites her experience: “Sparkling beneath your grip… I’m a woman in service to men.” In “White Knuckling,” she opens with the lyric that summarizes the entire album with one line: “Is this a rite of passage / Or a bad one-woman show?” and wrestles to terms with the death of a friend. However, throughout this record, Barton shines glimmers of hope on all the good things that matter just as much. “Florida Honey” quite literally sounds like it’s dripping in honey as she sings about her partner, and “Antisocial” further elaborates on her relationship with a woman who makes her as happy as can be, no matter how imperfect they both are.

Barton is learning to love someone she doesn’t fully love yet (“I guess I don’t like being inside my body.”) With the closing track, she concludes to at least try: “What if all this is a good sign? / When I let go and make space to try.” Instrumentally, the album lacks some variety; it could’ve pushed a bit further outside the box and experimented more with the production to create a more defined sound. However, Barton’s lyricism shines throughout the entire record, and her storytelling, beautiful voice, and vulnerability make this album worth a listen.

Andrea Larez