CD REVIEW: TV on the Radio
By Casey Gillis on Oct. 01, 2008
By Blair Amberly
ARTIST: TV on the Radio
ALBUM: Dear Science
LABEL: DGC/ Interscope
GENRE: Art-rock/pop
REVIEWER RATING: 4.5 out of 5
TV on the Radio has garnered worldwide exposure by being artistically eccentric yet accessible and, quite importantly, innovatively danceable. “Dear Science,” the third album from this Brooklyn five-piece, is a lovely pill to swallow, made up of beautifully executed pop songs that unravel more completely with each listen.
The lyrics are complex and extremely mature, with songwriters Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone making several stabs at destructive governmental world policies, the uncomprehendable weight of death, loneliness and, of course, love (both physical and ethereal).
Although typically at their best when the sound is warm and danceable, with synth notes and guitars that sound like Quincey Jones-produced ’80s pop albums, “Dear Science” is majestic in its slower, more realized songs, such as politically inflamed “DLZ.” This is not to say the several scattered dance tracks aren’t also extremely satisfying. “Crying” is one of the more soulful R&B-inspired tracks, with assistance from Antibalas’ horn section, that has Malone croon with Prince-esque smoothness. His lyrics are far from simple love demands, though, as he opens the song with “laugh / in the face of death under masthead / hold your breath through late-breaking disasters / next to news of the trite.”
The syncopated guitar plucks and lively, stuttering drums on the first single, “Golden Age,” sounds like it could have been a deleted floor-filling track from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Then, at the chorus Malone’s voice opens even wider, and the string section (violin, cello, viola) takes the song to even more visual heights. The following track, “Family Tree,” runs the opposite direction with a slow, beautifully epic, abstract-love ballad. Adebimpe’s voice quivers above lush strings and piano, singing “and in the shadow of your family tree / there’s a hundred hearts or three / pumping blood to the roots of evil / to keep them young.”
TV on the Radio seems always to be a few steps ahead on the musical creativity curve. “Dear Science” finds them perfectly balanced in both sound and message that feels as honest and brilliant as ever.
COMMENTS