TV on the Radio’s latest
Jennifer and I are eagerly awaiting a pair of concerts later this month — David Byrne’s current “David Byrne plays the songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno” tour, which will take us to Indianapolis (since very few acts seem to want to come to Cincinnati), and TV on the Radio’s show here at Bogart’s. I’ve been listening to TVOTR’s latest, Dear Science, quite a bit as of late, and though I have some mildly conflicted feelings about it, I think it’s a fantastic record, one of the best I’ve heard so far this year. Overall, Dear Science represents yet another strong chapter in the band’s continued evolution, moving from an early minimalism to a sound that’s often wonderfully dense and complicated, playing off of various contrapuntal tensions, from the Afrobeat-influenced interplay of simplistic guitar and bass lines to the gorgeous weaving of Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe’s voices. Early reviewers have cited this new, bouncy and energetic sound as a worthy amalgamation of Bowie and Prince (which I can’t argue against), and I’d add Talking Heads to the list of comparisons, especially on jittery, soulful tracks like “Red Dress.” Moreover, the band’s trademark swagger underscores some of their most fiery lyrical statements to date, from potent anti-war dirges to hopeful anthems, like the first single, “Golden Age” (video above).
Make no mistake, this is a fun album, and a serious, well-constructed one to boot. So what’s missing? For me, there are two things: first, TVOTR definitely expands their emotional palette here — the frenzy is rather nicely punctuated by low-key tracks which are both poignant (“Family Tree”) and porcelain (“Love Dog”) — but we don’t get a song which fully captures the marvelous sense of alienation, of despair, which was a defining mood on earlier albums. Where, for example, would a standout track like “Dreams” fit in here? Second, the band works hard to elide the differences between their recorded incarnation and their live performances: compared to, say, their debut, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes, which clearly sounds like the output of a studio project, Dear Science is unmistakeably the sound of a full-fledged band. However, I miss the little touches which give listeners some meta-awareness of the constructedness of the music they’re listening to. Occasionally, I want to hear something which consciously flaunts its cut-and-paste origins — “DMZ” gets close to this, but not close enough. Perhaps the issue is that guitarist and studio-guru Dave Sitek’s sonic experiments have been perfected to the point where his various loops, drones, delay matrices and samples fit seamlessly within the overall sound. What I’m really craving is another song like Return to Cookie Mountain’s opener, “I Was a Lover” (see below):
While Dear Science is, on the whole, more polished, more positive, and more energetic, it still lives up to, and builds upon, the immense promise contained in TVOTR’s first two albums. It should also be a hell of a lot of fun to see in concert, if the live clip above, and this performance, on Letterman, of the infectious follow-up single, “Dancing Choose” are any indication:
