On their 2004 debut, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, TV on the Radio tended to put the art before the rock, which made the idea-packed disc more interesting than it was appealing. For their major-label follow-up, the Brooklyn art rockers have honed and amplified the best elements of the previous album — monster synth riffs, Brian Wilson-style multitracked vocals, shoegazing walls of sound — while adding awesome new moves in the form of drummer Jaleel Bunton, whose intense proggy bashing locks in with the bottom-heavy boom-bap of producer-guitarist David Sitek's drum machines. Seemingly tapping a newfound well of self-confidence, frontman Tunde Adebimpe sings in a full-throated bellow — often in harmony with guitarist Kyp Malone's spooky falsetto — that is among the most soulful and arresting voices in rock.

Evoking Fear of Music Talking Heads, Station to Station David Bowie and Sign 'O' the Times Prince, the resulting disc might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedelic and ambitious of the year. (If you don't own a good set of headphones, get one.) The noisiest songs resolve into moments of intense prettiness. The prettiest — "Province," featuring backup vocals from Bowie, and "A Method" — receive added heft from strange instrumentation (listen for the surprising Gershwin-esque woodwind filigree that emerges near the end of "Tonight"). On "Wolf Like Me," a bluesy barnburner that drips with menace, Adebimpe sings what could be construed as the album's mission statement: "When the moon is round and full/Gonna teach you tricks that will blow your mind." Consider your mind blown.

“He Will Break Your Heart”

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."