President Yo La Tengo

by Mark Deming With the feedback loop that opened "Barnaby, Hardly Working," Yo La Tengo announced that they'd finally truly arrived as a band. Though ostensively just a seven-song EP, President Yo La Tengo far outstripped the group's first two albums in both ambition and accomplishment, embracing inventive musical structures (the opening cut), showing off their wit and their smarts (both on abundant display in "Drug Test"), running the gamut from folkie simplicity to furious thrash ("Alyda" and " "Orange Song," respectively), and sounding tighter and more potent than ever. The ten-minute skronk-fest "The Evil That Men Do (Pablo's Version)" was a stunning showcase for Ira Kaplan, whose feedback-drenched wailing suggested a meeting of the minds between Neil Young and Mission of Burma, and while Georgia Hubley's drumming is rarely flashy, here she displays an intuitive grace and intelligence that most percussionists would do well to study. And the modest but heartfelt cover of "I Threw It All Away" that closes the set is as affecting a Dylan cover as you're likely to run across. Yo La Tengo had great ideas from the start, but President Yo La Tengo was their first record where their execution was every bit as strong as the thinking behind it, and it stands as the group's first unqualified triumph. (President Yo La Tengo is available on CD in tandem with New Wave Hot Dogs.)