Review Summary: The band that sound like everyone and no one at the same time release breathtaking debut that sounds like everything and nothing at the same time. And then some.
There are lots of different bands in the world, but too many of them you can put in the same boat, the same genre, the same kind of scene. Not so with New York trio (a quintet when performing live) TV On The Radio- an avant-garde, left-of-centre, highly alternative and highly experimental group.
The name of the game for these guys is dubbed-out beats, synthesizer bass lines, plenty of overdubbed vocals and seemingly distant guitar and keyboard noises.
All this is well introduced and put into play with jazzy opener “The Wrong Way”- what other band could start a song with a horn section; a dirty distorted, one-note bass line and the lyrics “Woke up in a magic n*gger movie”? It swings along well with a blasting drum roll and horn section that is, simply put, on fire. This track serves purpose as the first track on the album for several reasons- mainly; it removes the room of squares, so to speak.
Anyone freaked out or turned off by the sound should not listen further. However, one would like to see it less as a warning and more as an invitation- come, relax, listen, see what you think of our take on music.
From thereon, there is a vast and dark-sounding array of sounds, from the start-stop drums and droning bass loop of “Staring At The Sun” and the angular guitar line and bright “dum-dada-dum” sing along of “Poppy” to darker, more dub-inspired tracks like “Don’t Love You” with its clicking, computer-generated drum beat and its dark, sorrowful chorus of “I just want to let you know I don’t love you anymore”.
But the album’s true centrepiece is the a Capella number “Ambulance”. There is no other adjective to describe this song but chilling. The whole song is vocals, there’s not an instrument in sight; and the song pays huge tribute to the musical style of doo-wop, a genre of which the band are very influenced by in their vocals. It is almost trance inducing, particularly in its spiralling, haunting refrain, in which lead/backing vocalist Tumpe Amberdien promises- “I will be your accident if you will be my ambulance; and I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast”. Easily the best recorded all-vocal song since Ben Harper and the Blind Boys Of Alabama did “Picture Of Jesus”
You’ll swear you’ve heard all of it before, and yet at the same time wonder how it can sound like no other band on earth. At this point, if you’re interested on listening to this album, this writer gives another warning- this not an accessible album. This is not an album you get on first listen. Much like other experimental/alternative albums (notably silverchair’s 2002 release “Diorama” and the last White Stripes album), it needs a few listens to be fully understood and appreciated for what it is.
This album is very low-key, not too many danceable tracks on this one, which has its good and bad points. Every track is different, interesting to listen to and a quality track. However, occasionally, listening to it all the way through, you wish there were one or two up-tempo tracks more like “The Wrong Way”, as not many of these tracks have a real beat to them. Nevertheless, as usual with this band, the good points outweigh the bad.
If you are after something out of the ordinary in all senses of the word, listen to this album. If you want to know what music is potential of in the 21st Century, listen to this album. If you are a commercial radio listener and this sort of thing frightens you, please leave through that door to your left and take your Pussycat Dolls album with you.
Or, better still, listen to this album.
