YO LA TENGO - THIS STUPID WORLD

From most artists, a title like This Stupid World would come across as merely trite and jejune, but in the hands of one of the smartest and most thoughtful bands going (they’re basically The New Yorker of beloved indie-rock groups) then it somehow sounds incredibly profound – and it also comes with a side order of relief, because, you know, this world is stupid, so thank goodness we have Yo La Tengo to help us through. 

The first new full-length from the band since the drone-y lo-fi experimentalism of 2020’s We Have Amnesia Sometimes (in between there was also the reissues of 1995’s Electr-O-Pura and 1997’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One), This Stupid World comes out in February 2023. As such I’ve only heard one track so far, the phenomenal ‘Fallout’, which, while taking into consideration the possibility of recency bias, is now my favourite YLT song. It may be three or so months, then, before we get to hear the thing entire, but as one of Leicestershire's finest, the great Julian Barnes, wrote, "Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory."