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Aug 14, 2013With Fade, they’ve come across ten songs that all sound tight and of course, refreshing, against the backdrop of what might be their most consistent album to date.
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Jun 4, 2013The results are simple, subtle arrangements that highlight their song craft.
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The WireFeb 15, 2013Few among us can craft an album as seamlessly fine as Fade. [Feb 2013, p.51]
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Feb 15, 2013The most direct album the band has ever assembled, Fade functions like one of the darker, LOL-averse episodes of comedian Louis C.K.’s eponymous show.
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MagnetFeb 11, 2013Fade is a gripping down-tempo treatise on the finer and coarser points of hunkering down. [No. 95, p.61]
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Feb 11, 2013Fade is vintage Yo La Tengo, but somehow gorgeously grown-up, with moments which your head will tell you sound normal, as if you have heard them before, but which make the rest of you feel contemplative and still.
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Feb 1, 2013As has frequently been the case with later Yo La Tengo albums, the surface appearance of this music is deceptively simple. Delve beneath it, and the artistry that has fuelled the group for three decades gradually reveals itself.
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Jan 23, 2013Fade is approaching a late career masterwork, their strongest top to bottom effort since their mid-'90s peak.
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Entertainment WeeklyJan 23, 2013A set of spare, slow-building dream pop that doesn't blast like a furnace as much as it hums like a hair dryer.
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Jan 22, 2013There are new elements here, but they've been brought into a foundation so strong they cannot help but fit in on only on Yo La Tengo's terms.
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Jan 22, 2013Nothing seems to rattle them, and hearing that Zen-like outlook on record is immensely refreshing and inspiring.
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MojoJan 18, 2013Fade feels like a definitive and hugely uplifting summary of a cult institution. [Feb 2013, p.88]
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Jan 18, 2013Fade is not an exciting record on its face, but finds itself in the emotional peaks that surface hazily here and there, through colorful production and exquisite songwriting.
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Jan 17, 2013While Fade's sleepy charms can appear slight when compared to the canonical totems in the band's back catalog, it's best to remember that this is a record about serenity, endurance and mortality.
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Jan 17, 2013Tortoise's John McEntire steps in for long-time producer Roger Moutenot, but any of these songs would fit perfectly on the band's last half-dozen albums.
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Jan 16, 2013Fade is a sign of perseverance for the group, as the album perfectly details just what is so essential and appealing about the group, and why there will always be a place for these guys in the world of indie rock.
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Jan 16, 2013Solid and dependable, Fade is another album in a long line of impressive works that, whilst never setting a cultural agenda, is always returned to for satisfying rewards
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Jan 15, 2013Save perhaps for an unusual dalliance with folk ('I'll Be Around'), little new personal ground is broken, but their songwriting chops and sound design remain cherishable.
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Jan 15, 2013Fade is classic Yo La Tengo: honest, unpretentious and, above all, catchy.
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Jan 15, 2013Fade isn't a dramatic reinvention, or even necessarily any progression at all, just Yo La Tengo not needing to be anyone else.
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Jan 15, 2013It can feel both more possible, and yet further out of reach.
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Jan 15, 2013Fade comes together as one of Yo La Tengo's most refreshingly forward efforts in both sound and matter.
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Jan 15, 2013The band's 14th record finds Yo La Tengo settling into a late career renaissance that revisits the timbre of some of their best records (especially the quiet grace of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out) without rehashing them, providing a welcome counterpoint to their slightly louder and more bombastic later efforts.
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Jan 15, 2013Fade is just 10 distinctive, beautiful songs in 45 minutes meant to show their languid new peers (Real Estate, Beach House, Grizzly Bear, what have you) who's boss. It shouldn't work. It's to that roaring 20-year streak's goodwill that it does.
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Jan 15, 2013Their quietest and most fragile album is also their most orchestrated.
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Jan 15, 2013Yo La Tengo may not be as daringly innovative as it once was, but, in targeting its experiments to a cohesive purpose, the band successfully fulfills Fade's grandiose scope.
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Jan 15, 2013The band revels in its pop modesty, as beautifully as ever.
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Jan 14, 2013Together Mr. McEntire and Yo La Tengo have calmed and thickened the band's music.
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Jan 14, 2013Each thoughtful sonic soundscape washes elegantly into the next, toward the long, lush finale.
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Jan 14, 2013[Fade's songs] blur and fade like old memories, but leave a meaningful impression.
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Jan 14, 2013Fade is rich with details and grows richer the closer one looks.
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Jan 14, 2013It may not herald another big day coming, but Fade is a thoroughly immersive dusk-to-dawn soundtrack to a dark night's passing.
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Jan 14, 2013It's perhaps not as immediately satisfying as their early work and not nearly as charming as their intimate mid-career efforts, but, after several careful listens, the album feels as powerful and urgent as anything else in their discography.
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Jan 14, 2013Fade returns to familiar territory so intuitively that it feels less like a return to form than a homecoming.
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Jan 14, 2013Fade is more than enough, proof positive that these good guys always come out on top.
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Jan 11, 2013An album that perhaps skips too easily from one style to another for its own good, though there are other sublime moments.
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Jan 10, 2013Their 13th studio album could fit anywhere into their post-1990 discography, acting as a guided tour through their styles.
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Jan 10, 2013There's nothing showy here, nothing flashy, just an understated, immaculately put together collection of happy and sad, yearning and sweet songs.
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Jan 10, 2013Fade isn't a drastic departure, but when you've polished your eclectic sound as well as Yo La Tengo has, that's not always necessary.
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Jan 9, 2013In collaborating with McEntire, Yo La Tengo has found a format that accommodates their ever-adventurous musical excursions while beckoning new listeners unaccustomed to 15-minute instrumental soundscapes.
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UncutJan 8, 2013At first, Fade sounds like more of the same--which is no bad thing. Stick with it, and the influence of producer (Tortoise') John McEntire becomes apparent. [Feb 2013, p.81]
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Under The RadarJan 8, 2013Fade is another welcome stop on a career that shows no signs of growing old. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.90]
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Jan 8, 2013Fade finds YLT at their most wistfully contemplative; a thought only softened by the paradox that this might just be one of their best yet.
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Jan 8, 2013The real revelation about Fade is that it is the most settled album they've recorded in years.
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Jan 8, 2013If a sense of staleness had begun to creep in round 2009's 'Popular Songs', Fade pretty much puts them back on track.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 37 out of 42
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Mixed: 5 out of 42
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Negative: 0 out of 42
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Feb 1, 2013
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Feb 27, 2015
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Feb 4, 2013