Bent Arcana- Bent Arcana

 

Despite notable attempts by Television and The Wipers, punk and garage rock bands have traditionally shunned long songs. To open that forbidden door is to venture beyond the sacred ground of simplicity, to betray everything they were reactions against, namely the excesses of prog rock and fusion bands. Can these warring factions ever be united? Well, ask a man like John Dwyer and he'll just laugh it off and go back to making whatever the hell he wants. After telegraphing the future with Warm Slime's title track, Osees truly opened the gates with Face Stabber's 'Scutum & Scorpius' and 'Henchlock', the latter of which is a side-long jam session that brings to mind Can's Tago Mago and Miles Davis's On The Corner and their ten-plus minute throwdowns. Were you to merely continue following Osees' studio output, however, you'd see a band who seem to have walked it back from the edge, with the transitory Protean Threat and (as of this writing) most recently the sub-half hour punk/hardcore love letter A Foul Form. It's in the extracurricular activities—live albums, The 12” Synth, Metamorphosed, Weirdo Hairdo, and Panther Rotate—the threads of Face Stabber were followed, whether long songs or otherwise. Sail even further over the edge of the known map of the Osees world upon the good ship S.S. Dwyer, and you'll land in the New World of Damaged Bug and improv-based side projects.

Bent Arcana would bookend this series of side project improv sidequests with a self-titled studio album and a live album. Today we're only concerned with said studio album, released in the depths of the covid pandemic on August 21, 2020. The sessions that would give birth to Bent Arcana took place over five days in December 2019, and featured the following players:

John Dwyer (guitars and a bunch more)

Ryan Sawyer (drums)

Peter Kerlin (bass)

Tomas Dolas (synths/keyboards)

Kyp Malone (synth)

Brad Caulkins (saxophones)

Marcos Rodriguez (guitar)

Laena “Geronimo” Myers-Ionita (violin)

Andres Renteria (misc. percussion)

Joce Soubiran (tenor saxophone)

Most of you will probably recognize Kyp Malone from the amazing TV On The Radio, while Brad Caulkins will be familiar to Face Stabber fans as the man on the saxophones. I won't pretend I know any of the other players prior to this record, but I do want to point out Joce Soubiran is one of the co-owners of the Zebulon venue, at which Bent Arcana will record their eventual live album.

Before we get to the album, a short side discussion. It can get a little weird talking about these side projects because other than Bent Arcana, the other releases are only really given an album title and not a group name. I will continue to use Bent Arcana as the band, since they do have two different releases billed to their name. Where it gets confusing is that the Moon Drenched album features all of the same players on Bent Arcana plus one, and the live Bent Arcana album has fewer members and has two songs off the Moon Drenched album. Nonetheless I will discuss them as separate bands/music projects for an attempt at simplicity. In addition, I'll italicize the album name if I'm talking about it specifically and not the band of the same name.

Anyway! Setting aside Sword & Sandals and Endless Garbage, the improv side projects led by John Dwyer are concentrated on varying combinations of jazz fusion, psych, and krautrock. Some tracks do seem like pure improvisations created on the fly through group interplay ('Outré Sorcellerie', 'Mimi') while others have a more linear progression suggesting a predetermined chord structure and framework, possibly multiple takes with different soloists leading while the others react and interact ('The Gate', 'Oblivion Sigil').

Something I keep thinking about when I listen to these albums is that, while Miles Davis was absolutely and rightly celebrated for his skill on the trumpet and his drive to innovate music, his most underrated asset was his ability to seek out other musicians who could not only help him realize his and stalwart producer Teo Marcero's vision, but to push him in new directions. (One could also credit some of his love interests with introducing him to new music). After all, the first and last songs on Bitches Brew weren't written by Davis, and the various players on that album are as quintessential to its depth of sounds, motifs, and ideas as he was. I would, of course, say the same about John Dwyer. There's no denying the talent of the current five-man Osees lineup, as well as previous members of earlier incarnations of the band. The people he got together for the improv side projects, despite not being “names” to me outside of Kyp Malone, gel with Dwyer and each other so well you'd think they'd played together for years. I will say that I don't really hear violinist Laena “Geronimo” Myers-Ionita much on Bent Arcana, and it's tough to tell if it's Dwyer or Marcos Rodriguez playing guitar. Anyway, he really knew exactly what he wanted to explore musically and had the ear to recruit people who were as skilled as him, if not moreso, and who could contribute equally. There's a reason he never names his bands something like “John Dwyer Band” or “John Dwyer's Bent Arcana” or something.

Bent Arcana is a beast of modern improv adjacent musicians collectively playing their asses off without ever letting their ego get in the way or dominating the conversation. You'll walk away with Ryan Sawyer as your new favorite drummer, a genuinely gifted player who can do loose, ever evolving funky krautrock/jazz grooves just as well as he does the kind of free-rhythm shock and awe that lives in the edges and the foundations of tracks like 'Outré Sorcellerie' and Gong Splat's 'Another Dust.' Were I tasked with choosing a MVP of Bent Arcana, though, I'd have to give it to Peter Kerlin. Whether on electric bass on 'Misanthrope Gets Lunch' or acoustic on the closing 'Sprites', his playing has a way of bringing everything into sharper focus while propelling everyone around him. The bassists of Phish and The Grateful Dead also have this style, part rhythm and part lead, that I tend to prefer in improv-heavy music, though the deadset bass repetitions of Can and Fela Kuti are obvious exceptions to the rule. Anyway, before I get to my closing thoughts I have to praise 'Mimi', a truly beautiful mid-album duet between the saxophonists that feels like stepping outside for fresh air in the midst of hotboxing a jam session. Perhaps a strange comparison, but it actually kind of reminds me of the (mostly) solo improvisations that Keith Jarrett plays on the Miles Davis boxset of live performances from late 1970, The Cellar Door Sessions 1970.

Given the ten member lineup, Bent Arcana is something of a fully-realized prelude to the coming side projects, containing bits of all the styles that would be more narrowly focused later on. This could result in the album feeling somewhat overstuffed with ideas and instruments, depending on your taste. Yet every time I give it another listen, especially on headphones, I seem to pick out things I missed before—the vocal groans and possible cuìca on 'Outré Sorcellerie', sonar-like pings and pongs from synthesizers throughout the album, what sounds like Out To Lunch-esque vibraphone on 'Oblivion Sigil'—and my appreciation for this record further deepens. Outside of Endless Garbage I sometimes think of these side projects as interchangeable. The devil is in the details, as always, and Bent Arcana is an unholy, otherworldly fine start to some of the best modern arcane musical rituals led by psych shaman/D&D dungeonmaster John Dwyer. And it only stays great from here.

Weekly Whiskey Episode 8

Hey presto, it's episode 8!

TV On The Radio- Nine Types Of Light

TV On The Radio have never wandered far into abstraction, and I think that's a crucial part of why their appeal is more far reaching than many of their indie peers. Even at their darkest, most experimental, and/or most strange, there's always a wink or a half-smile behind the music to keep it resonant, but also, less pretentious. In fact, TV On The Radio are as lacking of pretense as any band ever, so calling Nine Types Of Light their 'love' album is a little lazy. All of their albums have a lot of songs about love, and anyway, they aren't the type to (knowingly) make a concept album. I think it's more that this time out, the politics and social commentary take a backseat. It would be more apt to call this their West Coast/California album.

Fellow former-New Yorkers Liars also recorded an album out that way, last year's Sisterworld. It had the strangest sound of any of their records, welding a glistening sheen to grimy noise, thus at times sounding like a musical complement to American Psycho's “fancy, upper crust 80s culture meets terrible, disgusting violence” atmosphere. Nine Types Of Light, however, ends up being more like an easygoing sequel to Dear Science. Well, if anyone deserves to enjoy the warm weather and persistent sun of California, it's TV On The Radio. Mind you, this was the band who spent two albums with urban East Coast post-turn-of-the-millenium, post-9/11 darkness and paranoia, not to mention appropriately gothic 4AD cover art. Some of the lyrics on Nine Types Of Lightmay prove that TV On The Radio didn't find only warm weather and sunshine out West, but this record lacks any song one could remotely consider dark or experimental.

Which is also the key flaw of Nine Types Of Light. There's no grit or contrast to all of the prettiness, the hooks, the bright blasts of horns, and the grandiose strings. It's like listening to a rose with no thorns; as a result, there's nothing to really stick with you as much as their other albums did. It doesn't help that this is also the first time where the band seem content to sound like their last release. They may not be going in circles and doubling back on the tracks they laid down with Dear Science, but they are certainly still following those tracks, albeit a little off to the side, perpendicular style. Or perhaps it's better to describe this as a victory lap kind of album? Anyway, the hooks, near-top-of-the-game vocal arrangements, and funk of Dear Science are still there, just not as heavy and ambitious as they were last time. Furthermore, since this is an easygoing album, I sometimes get the impression they aren't trying as hard as a result. Album closer 'Caffeinated Consciousness' strikes me as one of their weakest tracks ever, neither providing a satisfying end to the record nor doing much with its basic groove.

In spite of this, TV On The Radio still manage to turn in a pretty good record. Yes, this is the highest praise I can give it: it's a pretty good record. Nine Types Of Light doesn't try to be, and doesn't feel, as “important” and era defining as their previous work. The stakes seem lower this time out; 'New Cannonball Blues' demonstrates that their gift for production and musical arrangements is as sharp as ever, yet the song never reaches the euphoric peak you keep anticipating. Elsewhere, the hip hop delivery of “my repetition/my repetition is this” on the aptly titled 'Repetition' really needs more grit and raw-ness to work properly. Dear Science was as inviting and pop-oriented as this record but the rhythms and harder edged funk rang true. Nine Types Of Lightseems completely smoothed over, comparable to the difference between the harder, more experimental mid 70s jazz fusion of Miles Davis versus the ease and sleepy pastels which would pass for most artists' fusion in the 80s. Nine Types Of Light is the sound of air conditioned rooms, newly paved parking lots, and people in business attire eating at the outdoor tables of expensive restaurants in the mellow late afternoon sun.

Not that there is anything inherently wrong with any of those things, just as there is nothing inherently wrong with a rose with no thorns. Still, after a year off and three since the last album, you'd think they would've reminded us why we give them so many accolades instead of taking a victory lap and chilling out West.

4 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Weekly Whiskey Episode 3

Episode 3! We've almost made it a month straight! Technically I had this uploaded last night but didn't have time to post it here til I got home from work. So.

Video: TV On The Radio- Staring At The Sun

Stripped of their production and loops, TV On The Radio sound weirdly hollow and minimalist on this live performance from circa '04. By all accounts their modern live shows is all kinds of awesome. Regardless, enjoy the afro.

Album of the Week: TV On The Radio- Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

Though we've got about five months to go, I think it's safe to say that TV On The Radio's EP, Young Liars, had the most astonishing and original music I've heard this decade from a new band. Their sound seemed so fully formed and owed no obvious debts to any bands to the point where the EP felt like it came out of nowhere. Of course, we know now that they had a semi-official album under their belts, OK Calculator, but that is an insular, lo-fi, skeletal work. Young Liars, though, had enough ideas and excellent music, a variety of sounds and yet a united flow, that it satisfied like an album does. By contrast, the band's 'true' debut full length, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, never had the same cache with me.

It took Return To Cookie Mountain to bring me back in, and last year's even better Dear Science proved that TV On The Radio were in this for the long haul. Yet Desperate Youth remained, in my mind anyway, a slight misstep. But why did I feel this way?? It had been enough time since I last heard it that I couldn't remember why other than a lingering sense that it was too long and not very consistent. Well, inspired by conversations at work about the band, I've dug back into the album, re-discovering it in the process.

The two words that come to mind when listening to this album again are thick and dense. David Sitek's production and electronic work were never again as oppressive and heavy as they are on Desperate Youth, which is an odd thing to find myself saying because I associate these qualities more with Return To Cookie Mountain. Regardless, there are many huge drum loops and electronic skronks and swirls running through this album like the red lightning on the cover. Meanwhile, Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe first began their brilliant vocal work together here (not counting the short New Health Rock EP), most notably on 'Ambulance', which is the next logical step past their doo wop cover of 'Mr. Grieves' from Young Liars. The potential problem for listeners is that, despite being only 9 tracks and 47 minutes long, Desperate Youth feels much longer. TV On The Radio's gift for marrying hook filled songwriting with their fascinating, unique sound hadn't quite fully bloomed here, so too often songs feel as if they go on for two or three minutes past their natural endings.

Oddly, then, I find myself loving this album now. It's my least favorite release by them, but Desperate Youth is an intriguing album stuffed with excellent sounds and ideas. Young Liars was a great introduction, but this was the first time we saw the band's full breadth on display, the mixture of indie rock, electronic music, hip hop, and doo wop/soul style vocals proving very fruitful and endlessly enjoyable. The album opens with similar force to the debut EP, some horns spurting a few notes before a jackhammer drum loop starts and we're off. From there Desperate Youth visits shoegazer style guitars on 'Dreams', psychedelic 60s style organs on 'Don't Love You', and offers the brilliant line "So cover your balls/cuz we swing kung fu" on 'King Eternal.' There's a real sense of enthusiasm and discovery on this album; often, there's nothing like a band taking the studio for a spin for their first full length. If TV On The Radio didn't produce their greatest work in the process, they still produced great work.

Ultimately, I will cop to the fact that this album isn't as good as their next two albums. This is mostly as a result of the heavy production/atmosphere and lack of flow due to its often slow-to-medium tempos, but no song on here strikes me as anything less than good. Assuming you love TV On The Radio, this album will be a feast of music. For everyone else, I think it's simply too dense and ponderous of a place to start.

The Best Albums of 2008 Part 2

8) Stephen Malkmus- Real Emotional Trash
Call me a super fan. Say that I have a man-crush on Stephen Malkmus. Whatever. Much as I love Pavement and wish Malkmus would get the boys back together, I'm not a fool. Those days are gone and Malkmus is wisely following his own muse from album to album. Real Emotional Trash takes Malkmus's flirtations with guitar heroics and the jam scene to its inevitable conclusion, adding ex-Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss to level out the bottom end. The result is less Phish or the extended moments of Led Zepplin than it is the Malkmus-ian aesthetic we've come to love but with even more emphasis on guitar-led improvisation than Pig Lib. The lengthy title track was one of this year's best joyrides.

7) Bon Iver- For Emma, Forever Ago
I think I said it best in my review: "It's always easy for me to forget albums like this when I'm discussing my 'best of the year' lists with the other music nerds and obsessives. These kinds of records, well, they don't change the world, create new genres, or instantly make scenes and sound-alikes sprout up in their wake. No, For Emma, Forever Ago is a familiar but fantastic pleasure, like spending a day off with a pot of tea, a new novel, and a rainstorm. The environment is well known but the novel is not. So it is with this album. It's one of the 2008's best (though technically it was self-released in 2007, so...) and a low key, strongly human piece of loss, pain, and recovery."

6) Portishead- Third
While I mostly fixated on the "comeback of the year!!" aspect of this release, one thing that's been sticking in the back of my mind has finally come out. Third reminded me of why I love electronic music. If accused of favoring rock above all other forms of music, I would concede the point. But albums like Third drop into my lap like a needy cat and whaddya know, I love electronic music, too. Using the tried and true "drum/synth loops with a vocalist" style as set in stone during the trip hop era, Third takes everything in a darker, more overtly synthetic direction while still remaining true to the band's feel and way with a song. Darker, more dissonant...it's like the soundtrack to Children of Men.

5) Wolf Parade- At Mount Zoomer
I wrote a really clumsy, music critic navel gazing kind of review for this album, but I think my point still stands: this album is every bit as good as their debut if you give it enough time. At Mount Zoomer seemed to be a pretty divisive release and while I fully understand why, I still think it's great if taken on its own terms. It doesn't have any songs as immediately stunning and memorable as 'I'll Believe In Anything', but it's got more variety and takes more chances. That counts for something in my book.

4) Sun Kil Moon- April
Had I ever listened to a Red House Painters or Sun Kil Moon (or even a Mark Kozelek solo release) album before April, I'm not sure I would have thought this album was so good. Maybe it was his worst release?? Well, having now gone back and picked up a good deal of Kozelek's work under those various monikers, I can safely say that April is still one of my favorites of the year. There's just something about his voice, his way with words, and the Neil Young-esque combination of skeletal acoustic ballads and extended guitar rockers that I can't get enough of. That the album is so long and I don't get bored halfway through speaks to its quality.

3) TV On The Radio- Dear Science
If Return To Cookie Mountain was the breakout release that Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes should have been, then Dear Science firmly entrenches TV On The Radio in the upper echelons of the indie rock world. The album is poppier, more polished, and more accessible than previous releases yet none of these are knocks against it. If anything, TV On The Radio have improved their way with vocals and their trademark hard-to-describe production, mixing hip hop, electronic, experimental, jazz, and indie rock textures, melodies, and rhythms into a magnificent soup. There's something quintessentially American about the band, at least the "classless, colorless" America that I hold as an ideal; between these guys and Barack Obama winning the election, this suburban white boy is happy to see that this country isn't as racist, conservative, and racially divisive as I thought.

2) Deerhunter- Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
Yes, I haven't reviewed the "bonus album" that comes with Microcastle. But that doesn't change the fact that Microcastle itself is an incredible achievement for the band. As with the above TV On The Radio release, it polished and opened up the band's pop influences while still being very Deerhunter-y. Were I a lazy critic, I would say that all the pop songs ended up on the album while all the psychedelic/shoegazer stuff ended up on Weird Era Cont. But that's not entirely true. Weird Era Cont. is more like a midway point between Cryptograms and Microcastle. But I digress. As a one-two punch, the twin release from Deerhunter is brilliant noise pop and 2008's best bang-for-the-buck.

1) Fleet Foxes- Fleet Foxes (and the Sun Giant EP)
While Deerhunter officially paired their two releases from this year, the Fleet Foxes indirectly paired their EP with the self titled debut. As good as Sun Giant is, it can't help but feel like an appetizer for the album. I'm trying to keep my hyperbole in check here, but Fleet Foxes is the most fully formed and brilliant debut in recent memory. We're talking Surfer Rosa "fully formed and brilliant debut" territory here. If this were 2003 or 2004, Fleet Foxes would have been lumped in with the psych-folk movement. As it is, the band's phenomenally gorgeous vocal harmonies (here comes the Beach Boys comparison...!!) recall the old masters the Beach Boys while their music gathers from old Americana staples like folk and country as well as the tried and true classic rock and singer/songwriter soundscapes. Yet for as many reference points as you might have for the band, it doesn't change the fact that these songs are good beyond description. Well, there's that hyperbole sneaking in. So: album of the year. The end.

Deerhunter- Microcastle

The one thing I took away from the Pink Floyd documentary Live At Pompeii wasn't that they were actually a great live band (they were, but that's not what I'm getting at). No, it was that, before Dark Side of the Moon, they were often criticized for being slaves to their technology. Roger Waters tries to deflect this, but there really was a leap from what had come before to the album they were about to release. Nobody thinks of Dark Side of the Moon as a compromising, sell out-style album yet it made the band far more popular and financially successful than they were before. Their music was still pretty odd, druggy and art rock-y and whatnot, but now it was paired with some instantly recognizable and memorable songs. Now, I'm not trying to compare Microcastle to Pink Floyd's legendary masterpiece, but I am trying to compare a criticism I've had for Deerhunter and a lot of other indie bands who pride themselves on textures, noise, and sheer awesome sound: where's the songs, guys?? Stripped of any electronics, Dark Side of the Moon would still be incredible music. And the same goes for Microcastle.

I used to always cringe when I heard that the new album from a band was more 'pop', for lack of a better term, than their previous releases. But if TV On The Radio's Dear Science taught me anything, it's that sometimes a little levity and polish goes a long way. Often the limits imposed on something force you to be more creative. David Lynch's more mainstream works are just as fascinating as his headtrip/surrealisms because he's got to make a sensical story. With Microcastle, Deerhunter wanted to focus on the 'microstructure' of songwriting and to have shorter, more concise songs, too.

This statement isn't going to make a lot of sense until I explain it, but: I've always suspected that I should love Deerhunter's Cryptograms more than I do. The same can be said for the solo album by Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox, which also came out this year under the name Atlas Sound. Cryptograms and Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel explore the territories of shoegazer, indie rock, ambient, dream-pop, and electronic music to varying extents and account for some of the most thrilling and interesting music of the last two years. Yet it took Microcastle to retroactively sell me on them because, as good as they are, they sometimes struck me as pastiche albums. You hear so many obvious influences on them that you begin to question whether the music is really that good or if it just reminds you so much of music you love you want to give it a pass. Microcastle, too, brings up obvious influences but it proves something that always lay under the psychedelic noise-pop of Cryptograms and the daydream ambient ballads of Let The Blind...: Bradford Cox is an incredible songwriter. After Dark Side of the Moon, no one thought of Pink Floyd as the lava lamp soundtrack/weird sound effects band. After Microcastle, no one will think of Deerhunter as only the shoegazer/dream pop lovers that they are. As thrilling as the guitar assault of Cryptograms was, as mesmerizing as the electronic textures of Let The Blind... was, they still had incredible songs under the hood.

The best way to describe Microcastle is to say that it's Deerhunter's 60s album. It still maintains their trademark sound of My Bloody Valentine meets Sonic Youth-at-their-druggiest meets experimental 70s pop ala Brian Eno and David Bowie. Now, though, they've peeled back a layer of experimentalism and let the songs breath. Even at its heaviest and noisiest, Microcastle is a pop album...though that's a relative concept. Play this for the average listener and it would still be druggy, noisey, and/or weird. As for my, the first time I heard the album I thought it was oddly plain. But I was mistaking restraint and an attention to moment-to-moment detail for what initially struck me as the band removing all the cool shoegazer and krautrock stuff. Whatever your initial impression may be, after a couple spins the hooks and sheer effortlessness of Microcastle completely win you over. And when I say it's their 60s album I mean it in terms of the pop edge of the thing as much as I do the production. If the songs of Cryptograms sounded like a dozen guitars layered on top of each other, Microcastle sounds like something that was recorded on an old fashioned four-or-eight-track tape machine. To put it another way, when the patented Deerhunter walls of sound crowd around you on this album, it serves the song and it sounds like it's being played live instead of processed and dropped on top of other tracks via ProTools.

If the opening track--with its slow descending guitar melody--sounds like something that could've easily fit on Cryptograms, then the next track 'Agoraphobia' lets you know what kind of album this'll really be. Written by one of the band's guitarists, it's downright melodic and classicist, recalling some long lost 80s art-pop band you've never heard of. 'Never Stops', with its repetitive-but-not-in-a-bad-way structure, demonstrates the strength of Bradford Cox's songwriting skill, adding layers of guitar squall on the chorus before stripping back down to the simple backing without missing a beat. The title track is a minimalist solo lament by Cox with only a guitar to keep him company until the 2:25 mark, when the drums kick in and we have a ripping rock song that reminds me of a slightly slowed down version of Brian Eno's 'Needles In The Camel's Eye.' Piano is used to haunting effect on 'Green Jacket', while the closer 'Twilight At Carbon Lake' has the same slow jam arpeggio style as Radiohead's 'A Wolf At The Door' but ends with an astonishing guitar climax that is Deerhunter at their shoegazer best. Perhaps the album's best song is the downright twangy 'Saved By Old Times', which borrows acoustic guitar, what sounds like a 12 string Rickenbacker, and a galloping chorus from the best Beatles song circa 1965 never written. Oh, and it's got a bizarre sound collage around the two minute mark that somehow works.

Really, though, what I find most impressive about Microcastle is how much I keep finding to love about it. The general idea is that difficult/experimental albums should reward repeat listening, but this album is great example to the contrary. It's Deerhunter's most accessible and 'pop' album yet, and while that's still a relative concept, Microcastle is all the more incredible for having such depth. Every song has some detail or hook that'll peek your interest on the next listen and, like Cryptograms, it still all holds together like a cohesive work. Without a doubt in my mind, Microcastle is a fantastic album and the best thing Bradford Cox and company have done to date. Essential listening for anyone wondering whether all of us indie rock/music obsessives are full of it or not.

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.