This is a really good YLT album. It is somewhere between Hoboken jangle-pop and lower East Side noise. There isn't much of the later YLT forays into jazz and smooth pop, but a great snapshot of indie pop before grunge overwhelmed everything.
This album has been lost in the shuffle, but is among YLT's finest studio moments. Others mention "Detouring America with Horns" and "Five-Cornered Drone (Crispy Duck)" as standouts, but my favorites are the polar opposites of "Some Kinda Fatigue" with its scronk and drone and "Satellite", the quiet, introspective set closer. These tracks point to the contradictions and strengths inherent in the music of Yo La Tengo, and the rest of the album is a great introduction to their oeuvre. You might as well download it all.
Five Cornered Drone (Crispy Duck) is the diamond in the crown of this album
This is Yo La Tengo's most accessible albums and "Detouring America with Horns" is flat out one of their best songs.
Also don't miss the acoustic version of Upside Down on the single...
At the very least, you must (and I mean, MUST) download "Detouring America with Horns" and "Upside-Down"--two of the finest songs ever recorded by one of the music world's most indispensable bands.
This record has historically been lost in the shuffle due to various antics related to Yo La Tengo's departure from Alias Recrods to join the esteemed roster of Matador, but is has long deserved to get back on every YLT fan's radar.
