New TV On The Radio album mingles with mainstream
By Chris Barth
Published on Tuesday, August 1, 2006
"Return to Cookie Mountain" presents a calmer and more mature sound than TV's acclaimed debut album, "Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes."
There is a right way and a wrong way to listen to TV On The Radio. The right way involves turning the volume way up. As the waves of sound roll over you, a voice will cut through, demanding your attention. That voice belongs to Tunde Adebimpe, the man who not only has one of the coolest name in modern music but also owns one of the sweetest sets of pipes in the indie-rock community. Tunde's vocals put TV on the map as well as on the radio, and hold together the band's recent release, "Return To Cookie Mountain."
After beating out musical giants like Wilco, Franz Ferdinand, and The Killers for the 2004 Shortlist Music Prize, the boys from TV On The Radio found themselves labeled the messiahs of the indie community. Their debut full-length album, "Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes," built off the success of their limited release "Young Liars" five-song EP and immediately thrust them to the fire of great expectations. They became a shining example of all that is right with music, recording a powerful and soulful mixture of genres that appeals to a broad audience.
Although they falter at times on their newest release, TV On The Radio manages to fulfill the hopes of fans while still allowing their sound to evolve. Although physical changes (a live drum player instead of a drum machine, backup vocals by friends of the bands, and so on) have helped change the band's unique sound between releases, the greatest contrast between "Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes" and "Return To Cookie Mountain" seems to be an ideological one. For better or for worse, 2006 finds the band calmer, more mature and less impulsive than in previous studio sessions.
Before even unwrapping the plastic, listeners will be struck by the cover of "Return to Cookie Mountain," where a shadowed, thorny bird's nest (found, perhaps, in guitarist Kyp Malone's enormous afro) contrasts with the unicorns, candy and adventure promised by the happy-go-lucky title. Once spinning, the disc itself is not what the listener expects. The songs are much more focused and rooted than their "Desperate Youth" predecessors. Adebimpe says it well on the album's third track, "Province": "Just like autumn leaves, we're in for a change."
The title "Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes" seems particularly poignant when looking back on the band's debut album. The group packed "Desperate Youth" so full of ideas that it couldn't control them, jamming as many as possible into every song. The resulting album was sonically brilliant but exceedingly dense. Now firmly established, TV On The Radio seems to have stepped back, relaxed and taken a more recreational approach to making music, now recording songs rather than ideas.
"Wolf Like Me," the first single from "Return To Cookie Mountain," is without a doubt as close to the ever-elusive "radio-friendly" sound as TV On The Radio has ever come. Others, like "A Method" and "Dirtywhirl," are more accessible than anything from "Desperate Youth" or "Young Liars," but still too strange to receive much mainstream airplay. The band enlists unlikely assistance of rock  star David Bowie to solidify the mainstream tendencies of another track, "Province." But, flying in the face of marketing intuition, the track focuses on Adebimpe's voice, leaving Bowie to provide back-up vocals for the heartfelt but repetitive melodies.
Despite a more clear focus than previous attempts, "Return to Cookie Mountain" is far from a bubblegum pop album. As if to pacify the tight-jeaned and faux-hawked crowd, TV On The Radio opens the album with "I Was A Lover," an intriguing song full of great beats and blaring horns covered by intentionally obtuse and annoying white noise. Equally pretentious is "Playhouses," a tune that has potential but fails to cut through the sheets of noise covering its best attributes. These critic-aimed tracks serve as low points on the album, however, and in contrast to "Desperate Youth," TV On The Radio is at it's best this time when simple and sparse. The album reaches its pinnacle on the final track, "Wash The Day," an epic eight-minute ballad that returns the focus to Adebimpe and leaves the listener desperate -- dare I say bloodthirsty -- for more.
"Return to Cookie Mountain" is not a masterpiece in the way "Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes" was. It continues the trend of watering down potent ideas and themes to a more superficial level, although the results are appealing. Though it may not win critical awards, TV On The Radio's latest record will win the hearts of fans on the fringe of indie music, perhaps a greater conquest. Listening to Tunde Adebimpe's voice soar on "Wolf Like Me," one can't help but agree with his words: "My mind has changed/my body's frame but God, I like it./My heart's aflame,/my body's strained, but God I like it." Without a doubt, TV On The Radio has changed and grown. They've lost some of their earthy texture, added some wrinkles and focused their ideas, but God, I like it.
Grade: B+.