TV On The Radio – Return To Cookie Mountain LP (180g Orange Vinyl) Online

Their second album and first for Interscope is almost wholly brilliant. Like Mogwai, Sigur Ros and a dozen others, TVOTR excels at making slowly-evolving tunes with vaguely anthemic choruses and lots of loud-soft dynamics. Unlike virtually any of those other bands, TV on the Radio mix a genuine and actual songwriting ability with their knack for finding sounds that appear to be new. This record is crisper-sounding and incorporates more dance-based elements, but it s essentially a pop album. While the lack of the free web-released Dry Drunk Emperor, a tribute to President Bush, is initially a bummer, the album percolates with enough pre-apocalyptic tension to satisfy anyone. In a Prince-pitched falsetto, the group sings I was a lover Before this war, While throughout, the combination of melody and invention is always pitch-perfect (well, except on Province and Let the Devil In, those songs sort of suck.) People of Earth: please make this band into total superstars and buy several copies of their album: one for the car, another for the office, etc. What we really need in our popular music is more weirdness, and more truth. –Mike McGonigal