Yo La Tengo Painful CD

Yo La Tengo: Ira Kaplan (guitar); Georgia Hubley (keyboards, bass); James McNew (drums).
Audio Mixer: Roger Moutenot.
Recording information: Water Music.
Yo La Tengo has released several fine albums before, but only Painful encapsulates their folky guitar experimentalism perfectly. Alternating between dreamy Velvet Underground-style ballads and raving, Sonic Youth guitar squalls, Painful also finds the group improving their songwriting skills immeasurably. Before, they relied on soundscapes; now, the sound fleshes out their songs, from the trance-like "Nowhere Near" to the dense "From a Motel 6" and the two versions of "Big Day Coming," which cover both ends of the spectrum. A subtly addicting album. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
The musical evolution of Yo La Tengo continued on 1993's PAINFUL. The group's tendency to veer between soft-and-slow and hard-and-fast remains--as demonstrated in the two wildly different versions of "Big Day Coming"--but as whole, the record shows increasingly nuanced songwriting by Kaplan and Hubley and greater variety in their overall sound. The addition of organ provides another sonic dimension, evoking a mood of tender fragility on the love song "Nowhere Near" and adding a caustic urgency to "Sudden Organ."
What's also notable here is that Yo La Tengo, who have always acknowledged the influence of both the old and the new, have begun to sound more and more like their influences. "From a Motel 6" with its soft, trance-like vocals and monolithic guitar attack eerily evokes the twisted '90s psychedelia of seminal British shoe-gazers My Bloody Valentine. Throughout, the record brims with rich guitar textures, from the shimmery instrumental "Superstar Watcher" and the burnished ripple of "A Worrying Thing" to the metallic whomp of version 2 of "Big Day Coming." Yo La Tengo continues its tradition of unexpected cover songs with "The Whole of the Law" by punk cult faves the Only Ones.Spin (11/93, p.128) - Highly Recommended - "...PAINFUL is catchier than MAY I SING WITH ME, and more adventurous than FAKEBOOK....Yo La Tengo still has a crush on weird sounds, but when [they] add up to a masterpiece, `genius' isn't even the word..."
Entertainment Weekly (12/31/93, p.115) - Ranked #4 in Entertainment Weekly's list of `The Best & Worst Records Of 1993' - "...Yo La Tengo blend fragile, delicate beauty with raw, bash-it-out crudeness better than anyone..."
Entertainment Weekly (10/8/93, p.54) - "...Guitars, voices, and keyboards shimmer and glide across pastoral melodies that get under your skin and do nice things. But there's a subversive mind at work here..." - Rating: B+
Q (7/00, p.138) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...[They] became remotely sure of themselves...at least learning that, while shyness is nice enough, it can get a little dull."
Alternative Press (7/95, p.96) - Ranked #75 in AP's list of the `Top 99 Of '85-'95' - "...PAINFUL's an album that has the ability to melt even the coldest critic's heart. It starts and ends in one of those odd dream states that really does take you back to your childhood and is all the argument you need to throw out your alarm clock for good..."
Melody Maker (11/20/93, p.34) - "...This is the album Yo La Tengo have waited 8 years to make...A dark, sinister smoulder of an album, resplendent in both ambient menace and often uncomfortable beauty...."
Village Voice (3/1/94, p.5) - Ranked #20 in the Village Voice's 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.
NME (Magazine) (11/6/93, p.29) - 8 - Excellent - "...how the trio have managed to sneak six albums out already and maintain such a low profile is hard to fathom...."