Last week, Rolling Stone nabbed a first listen to TV on the Radio’s excellent Dear Science, due out September 23rd. Produced by the group’s multi-instrumentalist Dave Sitek, the album finds the Brooklyn group fine-tuning what they did best on 2006’s Return to Cookie Mountain: tweaking and looping and distorting a grand arsenal of aggressive percussion, new wave synths, epic guitar noise and various kitchen-sink devices, then layering them all into a big, beautiful art-rock symphony.
But of all the instruments on the new record, the most compelling one is Tunde Adebimpe’s voice. On the blazing anthem “Dancing Choose,” which sounds like TV on the Radio’s answer to R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” the rhythm of his words pound like a beating drum: “I’ve seen my palate blown to monochrome, hollow heart clicks hollow tone.” Album opener “Halfway Home” begins with a guitar riff that recalls Cookie single “Wolf Like Me,” but as a Smiths-like melody kicks in, Adebimpe delivers the lyrics with the dreamy, sing-song quality of a nursery rhyme.
Of course, bandmate Kyp Malone has got some pipes too — especially on the funky R&B track “Cryin’,” where his falsetto rivals Prince’s. Thematically, Dear Science addresses similar themes to Cookie Mountain — namely, that these might feel like End Times, but love can get you through them. And the bands’ Brooklyn friends help drive that message home: members of the Afro-funk group Antibalas lend some golden horn rave-ups to “Red Dress” and Katrina Ford of the Celebration delivers lovely harmonies on the orchestral closer “Lover’s Day.” Over marching-band drums, sleigh bells, hand claps and distorted horn loops, her voice dovetails nicely with Malone’s as they sing, “Swear to God we’ll get so high we’ll melt our faces off.” And the sentiment is right-on: this creative tour-de-force could be an epic drug album, too.
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