Album Review: TV On the Radio's "Dear Science"

Reinvention Breeds Content for TV On the Radio

New York experimental rockers continue to prove themselves an asset to the music world on their danceable and hope-infused new album.

A Major Leap

The history of popular music is filled with stories of sellouts and conformists. The moment a critically-lauded independent band makes the leap to a major label, it is said, an angel loses its wings mid-flight and crashes to earth.

Major labels exist to make a profit so the creative integrity of the bands on their rosters isn’t as much a priority as is how many copies of a particular album those bands can sell. See, for instance, Death Cab for Cutie, whose jump from Seattle independent Barsuk Records to Atlantic following the release of 2003’sTransatlanticismmarked an astounding spike in notoriety but a disparaging decline in the quality of the band’s music.

It is for this reason one might be skeptical about TV On the Radio’s move from independent Touch and Go Records to Interscope, home to such artistic luminaries as Soulja Boy and Limp Bizkit, after only one full-length release.

As it turns out, such skepticism was unfounded: the band’sReturn to Cookie Mountain(2006), while accessible, was incredibly experimental and sounded nothing like the modern popular music propagated by the label it was released on.

It also instantly made its mark as one of the defining records of the 2000s, a dark, brooding treatise on the confusion and fear that plagues the age we live in. By all accounts it was a masterpiece, one of which few bands ever achieve. WithDear Science, TV On the Radio has released its second.

Blinded byScience

Thematically,Dear Sciencedeals with ideas similar to those inCookie Mountain, but the presentation is dramatically different. Times are no less scary or confusing, Tunde Adebimpe’s lyrics intone, but we’ll never make it through without hope and love; considering how frighteningly close the nation finds itself to collapse at the moment, the sentiment couldn’t be coming at a more perfect time.

The music, too, often echoes this optimistic design. The album opens with the thundering drums of “Halfway Home,” which builds its verses on a single distorted guitar chord to a revved-up barnburner of a finale; “Crying” rides Adebimpe’s funky, Prince-style croon to a cool and beautiful conclusion of cascading horns and synthesizers; “Red Dress” utilizes those same horns to punch up an epic, sexually-charged anti-war groove.

Other high-energy cuts, like the half-rapped “Dancing Choose” and the groovily-thrumming “Golden Age” are offset by lower-tempo numbers. Album standout “Family Tree” opens with dramatic piano chords and Adebimpe’s lovelorn lyrics and adds layers of instrumentation before reaching its achingly gorgeous finale.

Especially thrilling is the interplay between Adebimpe’s vocals and the colossal percussion section. Guitarist and producer David Sitek has clearly spent time working to get the dynamics just right: neither vocals nor percussion monopolize the mix, but instead vie simultaneously and deservedly for your undivided attention.

Change We Can Believe In

The release ofDear Sciencecomes at an incredibly opportune time politically. TV On the Radio's previous albums have adopted a murky atmosphere to confront the fear and uncertainty that marred the years of the Bush administration.

For the past several years, however, Barrack Obama has spread a message of hope and change for America, and onDear Science, while the band never specifically endorses Obama himself, aesthetic and topical tweaks do seem to capture exceptionally well that optimistic spirit. No one can say how Obama's own administration will play out, but no matter your politicsDear Scienceis a winner.
 

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