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Dear Science resounds
Album band’s most sophisticated yet
By Dan Oberbruner
With greater attention to detail and appropriate and lofty utilization of a wide range of instrumentation, even slow, prodding songs like “Family Tree” pack the same punch and fullness of the more intense tracks, utilizing perfectly placed strings and layered vocal harmonies.
When I first heard TV on the Radio almost four years ago I was a bit confused. Their debut full-length album, “Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes,” had garnered rave reviews from several notable sources. It seemed like the kind of album that comes out of nowhere and assumes a life of its own through critical praise. But when I listened to it I found myself decidedly unexcited about the whole thing.
The songs contained therein composed a skeleton of sorts. Sparse instrumentation was layered over extended and repetitive song structures. The lo-fi yet polished studio production didn’t destroy but rather dampened what sense of soul the album hinted at. Though, in retrospect, the one thing the album did have in droves was heart.
At its best, on songs like “Staring at the Sun” and “The Wrong Way,” there was such a driving sense of urgency and enthusiasm, albeit restrained enthusiasm, that the rest of the tracks paled in comparison. It was an album that was a lot like falling asleep angry. It was mostly lost in thought tossing and turning with moments of diabolical brilliance that lost their power in the grander scheme of the night.
“Dear Science” is the morning after. It’s a truly great album that holds onto the same
basic compositional premise of “Desperate Youth,” combines it with the dark, brooding atmosphere of the great “Return to Cookie Mountain” and fleshes the whole thing out into something profound.
Album opener “Halfway Home,” with its soaring synths, doo-wop harmonies, and droning guitar culminates in a sound that’s borderline explosive and sets the stage for the remaining ten tracks. Every song is an experiment on a theme and influence ranging from funk, to indie-rock, to electronic freak-outs.
The clinically produced sound that left many songs on “Desperate Youth” feeling cold and uninviting has become a grand asset. With greater attention to detail and appropriate and lofty utilization of a wide range of instrumentation, even slow, prodding songs like “Family Tree” pack the same punch and fullness of the more intense tracks with perfectly placed strings and layered vocal harmonies.
Album highlight “DLZ” is beautiful, dark and absolutely haunting. It’s a perfect example of how the songs on “Dear Science” are an elaborate evolution of those on “Desperate Youth.” The song starts with both acoustic and electronic drums that sound a bit like distant and muffled gunshots under a moody synth-bass. Singer Tunde Adebimpe’s sigh-like yelps segue into a bridge of la la’s and this pattern repeats with continual introduction and reintroduction of atmospheric elements. Where “Desperate Youth” or even “Cookie Mountain” would have let the mood simmer and resonate on a looping cycle, “Dear Science” expands the song until Adepimbe proclaims “Never you mind/Death professor” and the song simply bursts into sublime territory.
Though lyrically “Dear Science” is often lamenting over love, politics, or unavoidable and unwanted change, the overall theme is one of aggressive optimism. TV on the Radio is offering up 11 anthems to not only relate to your heartache or confusion or despondency with the state of the world but to help you get through it. Even if you were a bit turned off by their previous releases, this is an album that is bound to grab you in some way--either by the heart, the intellect, or the collar but any way you feel it, it will leave a lasting impression.
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