TV On The Radio - Dear Science,

Despite their cannibalistic tendencies, TV On The Radio remain a distinctly modern band. Their output to date may have been characterised by a fusion of disparate musical languages, drawing on indie, hip hop and dance aesthetics in an equally undetermined postmodern fashion, but there’s always prevailed a subtle modernist sense of progress. As is central to the highly modernist ideology of rock classicism, the technology of the studio is the omnipresent sixth member, the process of production as tacit to the final text as Tunde Adebimpe’s unmistakable quixotic vocals. It’s a defining characteristic written into their genealogy.

Where Desparate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes showcased a band still wrestling with just how to document their numerous tangential ideas, Return To Cookie Mountain represented a shattering, dense realisation of their muse, mutli-tracked to infinity when given the required studio time and resources. Not simply appropriating a mess of surface level styles, …Cookie Mountain saw the band integrating them into thick soundscapes more at home on that other modern medium, vinyl than through omnipresent compressed digital files. Given their status as blogosphere royalty, it's an often-unobserved irony that their artistic intentions may actually be compromised by that which popularises them. And it’s also those who popularise them that are going to be anticipating this new record with an expectancy reserved for few others and likely leading charge on a backlash given the pedestals they’ve been deservedly afforded.

In what may be forgivingly mistaken for pretension, as with all modernists, TV On The Radio are clearly seduced by the importance of their own art. To the relief of those that understand what made them so cherished in the first instance, there’s little on their latest that signals a change in ideology. Striving towards the creation of something important should not necessarily be confused with pretension and pretension itself not always viewed pejoratively. So, just where does that leave us with Dear Science,?

Representing not so much an entirely unprecedented leap into new territories, Dear Science, is rather a sideways glance to what came before, and how could it not be given …Cookie Mountain’s monolithic shadow, but there’s also a clear focus on the previously unexplored avenues and alleyways of their past efforts. And for the most part, it’s a successful endeavour, working as a well-conceived and studiously crafted whole that stands alone and proudly even within their respected oeuvre. Indeed, as is the problem with the digital world, the two prominent tracks that 4AD have allowed to be leaked – the clumsily titled “Dancing Choose” and the superior “Golden Age” – are slight misnomers when taken on their own, but from a promotional standpoint make perfect sense as single entry points.

“Dancing Choose” is reminiscent of Sitek’s work with Foals, driven by a trademark horn line, venomous vocals and underpinned by a muscular DFA-esque rhythm section that’s pure New York noise. By some way the shortest song on the album, its flexed charms are entirely immediate, even if diminishing on repeated listens. “Golden Age” usurps the aforementioned by virtue of an inspired fluid bass line and a sunrise euphoria built into its tension and release structuring that’s pinpoint designed for 4am epiphanies. As that would suggest, these are tracks with both eyes aimed squarely at the dance floor and the wide-eyed, thick-rimmed indie cognoscenti, but, just as with Foals, misleading of the more soporific (and, save “Crying”, generally more successful) tracks that comprise Dear Science,.

While the production is consistent in its warm precision, the characteristic big sound so defining of …Cookie Mountain is supplanted here several times with an amorphous ebb that’s understated, and flagrantly and immersively romantic. In line with past lyrical themes, for TV On The Radio the end may be nigh, the apocolypse at the end of the next song, but that’s simply encouragement to move our bodies, our heartbeats, that little bit closer.

It’s a sentiment most evident in the redemptive “Love Dog” and the really quite filthy career highpoint of “Lover’s Day”. And there’s the suggestion that this romanticism may well be a product of science itself. There’s a distinct impression that this is a drug record, the alternating highs and lows of the tracklisting reflecting waves of raucous bliss and heady comedown respectively, the loved up and zoned out lyrics twisting love and hedonistic self-nihilism into political protest itself. That’s modernist rock classicism right there.

But Dear Science, isn’t an unmitigated success. “Red Dress”, featuring Antibalas is their most overtly hip hop influenced song to date, but feels forced, the fusion of influences sitting awkwardly like some faux soul hip hop break from 1998. “Family Tree” is, somewhat unexpectedly, a more fashionable Coldplay and “Stork and Owl” a little non-descript next to the similar but superior “Love Dog”. But they’re slight criticisms, a victim of the band’s impeachable high standards.
If TV On The Radio have any notable peers, it’s perhaps Animal Collective or even Radiohead with whom they’re most evidently aligned. Although the connecting lines between these bands are opaque at best, there does pervade a shared sensibility which foregrounds the importance of texture. If nothing else, Dear Science, is a dexterous, immersive record, one to live in and digest over time. It’s evidence of a band unwilling to stand still, embracing their schizophrenic sonic impulses but nevertheless impressing their own distinct voice. As an endeavour itself, it’s a strangely provident model for the modern world.