Times New Viking and Yo La Tengo took a tour of the Midwest together, repeating a similar tour they completed in 2008. They played in St. Louis on Sunday, Jan. 24 at the Pageant.

Times New Viking is attempting to rekindle the prolific standard that bands needed to live up to in the late 60s, when churning out multiple releases in the same year was necessary to avoid falling off the radar. Drummer/vocalist Adam Elliott has referred to the band as a product, and this incessant self-consciousness has seen them charge punk energy into three LP releases in four years.

All things considered, the songs TNV have produced to date are sweet and melodic but intrinsically damaged. It is initially difficult to tell if they are too prickly to embrace. Their do-it-yourself defense of cheap guitars and broken microphones sparks interest, but causes problems too. The vocals that Elliott and keyboardist Beth Murphy provide do not weave together as much as undermine each other in an enthusiastic hurry to make noise.

Still, they do pretty well. TNV is genuinely talented at writing catchy songs, and the harshest critic cannot help but recognize a graceful, albeit fairly lackadaisical, know-how imbedded in their garish trappings.

At this point, TNV has tightened what they first started doing on “Presenting the Paisley Patch” into grooved and more immediately accessible gems. The songs are still prickly, but the feel-good pop sensibility that has earned them notoriety is more overtly displayed even, at times, with pub-rock gusto rather than artistic stand-offishness.

At this point, Yo La Tengo is the matured version of a similar process. The start of their career was a collection of ostensibly unlistenable jams. Now, 15 years and 12 studio albums later, Yo La Tengo has produced everything from experimentally loud to experimentally soft.

The bond they share musically is only the start of the interest to which this bill gave rise. Times New Viking has a track on their 2008 release “Rip It Off” called “Times New Viking Vs. Yo La Tengo,” and the question of the night was whether the two-decade-late upstarts could outclass their exalted seniors.

Yo La Tengo was perfect. They played for two encores and two hours. Their set list, which always has the potential to confuse even their most hardened fans by becoming too obscure, showed off their diversity while maintaining stylistic equilibrium. They were charming, appreciative and professional. TNV played short songs and a short set. They were entertaining but clearly underdeveloped in comparison.

Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo was worth the admission price by himself. He twitched and crooned his way through the set, matching an animalistic deconstruction of guitar with easygoing vocals. TNV likes making noise but Kaplan is on a whole different level. He approached his synth with the same wild-eyed glee as Dr. Frankenstein approaching reanimation.

The two bands came together during the first encore to perform a cover of The Electric Eels’ “Accident.” Yo La Tengo, and Kaplan in particular, had no trouble keeping up with the youth’s boisterous participation. The result was a somewhat uneven blend, but the two bands seemed to be enjoying their personal moment.

Yo La Tengo closed the set with a couple of low-key acoustic numbers. Though an abrupt change of pace at the time, it reminded the audience that Yo La Tengo has been around for ages, that they know both sides of sonic affluence, and that they are still happy to just relax for a second with their fans.