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March 17, 2006

TV on the Radio on the Internet

Brooklyn art-rock doo wop group TV on the Radio have made quite a stir on the old internets lately, signing to Interscope Records just in time to open for industrial has been Trent Reznor on a massive tour and have their second album, Return to Cookie Mountain (cough), promptly leaked in its entirety. Or, not quite entirety as the word soon followed that the shit's not mastered. Which puts your intrepid reviewer in a bit of a quandary. You don't want to rail against something that's supposedly unfinished, as it's premature and unfair. Praising an unfinished work however, well that's just encouraging for the band and informative for a throng of fans desperate for new material, right? Hopefully the plague of legal department suits now at their beck and call will see it that way...

TV on the Radio - I Was a Lover

I can't imagine how many more layers this one could possible stand. Drum loops, unexpected piano, multi-tracked falsetto, fuzz washes, and buried guitar squeals all figure into the mix. One is tempted to play kindergarten teacher and take the finger paints away from guitarist/producer Dave Sitek before it all turns out a brown blob. As it stands now, it resembles an updated and more muscular take on the mid-90's trip-hop sound, with Tunde Adebimpe's forceful baritone rolling over a lolling drum cycle, and a stuttering horn loop shining through the background noise. The lyrics see the band flirt with politcal sloganeering ("I was a lover/ before this war") but not in as overt a way as their Hurricane Katrina response track "Drunk Dry Emporer." The relative vagueness suits the pea soup fog of the production quite well.

TV on the Radio - Playhouses

This one is a real kicker, instantly supplanting the underappreciated 2004 single "New Health Rock" as the band's most party friendly offering. Persistant drums and foreground vocals dominate, but as always Sitek provides some crazy mized up wall paper to surround them. The chorus is Grade A Anthem quality with TA keeping pace with the drums, shouting "My heart's aflame/ My Body's strained/ and God I like it/ like it!"

Two minutes in the boys smartly realize that their nitro fueled gallop is likely to burn out over the 5 minute run time, and chill the fuck out. For a minute Tunde goes for a more deliberate vocal delivery, and is flanked by waves of disembodied Ooohs and Ahhh's, and some chiming crystal synths. Then, on a dime, its off to the races again.

It's strong work with better songcraft than the band, who's emphasis was primarily on atmosphere, had displayed previously. Here's hoping that the already hyper-dense arrangements don't bulk up to the point of melodic obstruction, and that this whirlwind of sound has truly been mastered to the degree that these un-mastered tracks suggest.

Tags: TV on the Radio

Posted by Jeff Klingman at March 17, 2006 12:13 PM

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