Album of the Week: TV On The Radio- Dear Science

Way back in 2003, TV On The Radio fired a shot across the bow of indie rock with the Young Liars EP. Here was something that sounded so completely new and fresh yet so fully formed that it felt like one of those once-a-decade, 'bolt from the blue' debuts. With four incredible originals and an impossibly good doo wop cover of 'Mr. Grieves' by the Pixies, the band's potential seemed limitless. If their full length debut Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes wasn't quite the homerun that we anticipated, then TV On The Radio proved they were worth all the love with 2006's Return To Cookie Mountain, one of--if not the--best album of that year. And so here were are two years later with another album, another scrapbook full of critical praise, and appearances on year end 'best of 2008' lists.

Listening to Dear Science for the past day or so since finally getting it, I can't help but comment on the band itself. Here is a group of men in a quintessentially American way, multi-racial and belonging to no definitive genre. Yet the music they do draw from--rock, post-punk, electronic music, funk, soul, hip hop, and even jazz--is also quintessentially American, too. While a band's origin shouldn't matter, I still feel indelible patriotism for TV On The Radio. Go team!!

Dear Science is a deliriously enjoyable listen, one that starts out catchy and smooth and then just gets deeper and more addictive from there. TV On The Radio spent most of Return To Cookie Mountain experimenting with their sound, producing music that was dark, complex, and rewarding but not necessarily immediately enjoyable. Dear Science is a far more accessible album but doesn't sacrifice depth or intricacy for it. With In Rainbows Radiohead proved that making more accessible, immediate music wasn't automatically artistic resignation and a grasp for the mainstream. Besides, if anything, TV On The Radio's skill in both the background details of production and the obvious foreground of the vocals has gotten better. Return To Cookie Mountain and their previous efforts had excellent vocals--given that the band has two gifted, unique vocalists in Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe--but Dear Science is, well, more excellent still. And David Sitek, as both band member and producer, surrounds the songs in subtle sound loops and atmospherics that have become just as much the group's signature.

So, yes, Dear Science is a much more 'pop' album that what has come before. But it's all the better for it. The album has a fun funky vibe to it, especially on songs like 'Golden Age' and 'Red Dress.' Then there's the album closer 'Lover's Day', which is more or less their version of a Prince ode to, err, making love. The album's subject material is fundamentally as nervous, worried, and searching as Return To Cookie Mountain but it's cast against lighter, more danceable songs. The most immediate comparison I have is Beck's Modern Guilt, which set songs full of worry and darkness to the catchiest and most consistently good music Beck has made in a long time. Both have that same lean-but-dense hip hop/rock/electronic sound, too. But I digress. Dear Science is just as brilliant with the slower side of things, as on the string-section-enhanced, mostly percussion-less 'Family Tree' which slowly flowers into a beautiful lament or 'Love Dog' which kind of sounds like TV On The Radio doing trip hop.

I still need more time with Dear Science to decide if it's album of the year. And to decide if it's better than Return To Cookie Mountain. But I think it speaks volumes for how good Dear Science is that I'm already considering it in those two ways after only a couple days of listening while other music critics, who've had it longer, are placing it high up--or on the top--of their 'best of 2008' lists. But, whatever. Dear Science is an album that re-affirms one's love for music. It's TV On The Radio's most immediate and accessible album but still has everything that makes them great. A must hear.