After their 2006 studio album, Return To Cookie Mountain, Brooklyn’s TVOTR became a blogger favourite; a smart, inventive, socially-conscious multi-racial rock band who weren’t afraid to make you dance. While this has its advantages, it also means if you stray closer to the mainstream you’ll be shot down by the critical arrows before you begin.
Perhaps with this in mind, Dear Science seem to have made some concessions to popularity while keeping their natural inclination towards wandering away from the obvious. Produced by multi-instrumentalist band member David Sitek, the production is slicker and less dense than previous releases, and main vocalist Tunde Adebimpe is pushed to the fore, instantly making the songs more intimate and immediate.
Opening track Halfway House is a thumping-drum led wall of synth-noise with nursery rhyme-style lyrics, odd beach boy style ba-ba-ba’s, and a soaring chorus. Second track Crying has a funk rhythm and 70’s style guitar, and as the album unfolds, more and more disparate styles are thrown into the mix, with drum and bass and soul influences on later tracks. What is most impressive is not that they’ve made it work, but they’ve made it sound easy. Luckily, as well as the nerdish levels of exploration they’ve also packed enough fear, sadness, confusion and happiness to flesh out the songs perfectly.
Prince can be heard in Red Dress, Radiohead in Stork And Owl, and the brilliant Love Dog even echoes David Bowie (who guested on the last album) and various other big-chorus rock bands, but despite these loose comparisons, TV On The Radio don’t really sound like anyone else at the moment.
On standout tracks Family Tree, first single Golden Age and brass-assisted Lover’s Day, you get a glimpse of what a brilliantly talented modern band making unashamedly emotive, ambitious music sounds like. While it may not be clear what every song is about, this is a fantastically textured and ornate album, which will surely be enjoyed by critics and fans alike.
SEE ALSO: Radiohead – Kid A[Parlophone], Prince – Sign o’ the Times [Warner], Cold War Kids – Robbers and Cowards [V2]
