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

Yes, it's true: Yo La Tengo dabbles in electronica on I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, specifically in the songs "Moby Octopad" and "Autumn Sweater." But the band also does a fuzzed-up cover of the Beach Boys' "Little Honda," a noise-powered trainwreck called "Spec Bebop," the ironic love song "Sugarcube," and a delightful light-headed bossa nova on "Center of Gravity." In short, I Can Hear The Heart is not a trendy, up-to-the-minute exploration of sound so much as it is a Yo La Tengo record, an example of a band having great fun exploring the possibilities of pop music. And it's great. For all the attention Yo La Tengo receives, it might be one of the most overlooked and underrated bands currently recording, and this might be its best record yet. There's no stand-out hit, though, which is too bad, but I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One will still stand as one of the year's finest records.