Track Listing

1. I Was A Lover
2. Hours
3. Province
4. Playhouses
5. Wolf Like Me
6. A Method
7. Let The Devil In
8. Dirty Whirl
9. Blues From Down Here
10. Tonight
11. Wash The Day Away
12. [ambient audio]
13. Snakes and Martyrs
14. Hours (El-P Remix)
15. Things You Can Do

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1044 in Music
• Released on: 2006-09-12
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
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

Customer Reviews

Have a Review, Won't You?
Stop basing your purchases on written reviews or singles. Reviews are opinions of people different from you with biases different from your own. Singles are used to get close-minded peeps to buy the full album. Those close-minded peeps are often disappointed. Being open to cutting edge music doesn't mean you listen to "Return to Cookie Mountain" 12 times, say you "tried too like it" and sell it on CraigsList. It means you actually like it. Because independent of any review (I never heard any review, other that a local DJ telling an upset listener--who only liked "Wolf Like Me"-- to listen to the album again and if he didn't like it, he'd buy it from him) I listened to this album loud on headphones and thought it was the best new, complete album I'd listened to in a long time. They didn't copy someone else and this isn't experimental. This is real, listenable music if you like music and not revisiting memories of other artists.

Eh....
I bought this CD, as I sometimes do, because of one song I heard. In this case, Wolf Like Me. That song is a fine, fine tune with good synth sound and a nice peppy melody. The rest of the disc, as so often happens, was a bit of a let down. If you really, really liked Wolf Like Me and were hoping for more of the same, my suggestion is to just get the single.

Sophomore masterpiece with recording loops and guitar waves
TV on the Radio's sophomore album is a brilliant mix of broken record loops, scatologic drums and waves of guitar noise.

Everything in the album recording is incredible. This album uniquely brings plenty of unconventional sounds, such as a broken horn loop followed by repetitive looping keyboard chords in the war song "I Was a Lover." Jaleel Bunton pounds a fast jungle-style drum beat in "Playhouses." So many songs sound like electronica jams, but they are filled with plenty of elaborate wall-of-sound guitar waves and choral "oohs."

TV on the Radio has become infamous with the multiple singers singing the same lyrics in a echoing vocal track. "Province" shows off their gorgeous voices (including David Bowie) in a beautiful crooning "Ooooh" in the opening, with soothing electronic keyboards in the background. However, the vocals reach an epic level when they reach the chorus, singing at the same time "Hold your hearts courageously as we walk into this dark place. The wave of guitar noise makes the song even more incredibly uplifting.

The wide variety of sounds, from a simple whistle to jagged, loose military drum beats, make this album a true gem. There's even a cool little "Dirtywhirl" song, which sounds like a warped circus organ song with a hip-hop beat. And by the time I heard the orchestra and the low buzzing guitars in the slow jam "Tonight," I was convinced that this was one of most beautiful albums I'd ever heard.

Anyone who wants to listen to the best new thing should check out TV on the Radio's album "Return to Cookie Mountain." It's probably one of the coolest albums in the indie rock genre.