Return to Cookie Mountain — TV on the Radio
Interscope
2006
Rating:


"Return to Cookie Mountain" isn't the obvious choice for the title of an epoch-defining album, but there it is.

Perhaps, given the current world climate and the increasing politicizing of teens and twentysomethings, a title like "Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes" would be more apropos — had TV on the Radio not already used that magnificent name on its 2004 proper long-player debut.

So here stands TV on the Radio's sophomore album with a title that doesn't scream "Masterpiece!" yet "Return to Cookie Mountain" is one nonetheless.

The album of the year and a musical work with even larger historical significance than can be contained within the year 2006, "Return to Cookie Mountain" is bound to be remembered in the same high regard as David Bowie's "Low," Talking Heads' "Remain in Light," My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless," Pavement's "Slanted and Enchanted" and Radiohead's "OK Computer."

From the opening track of "I Was a Lover," "Return to Cookie Mountain" announces itself as a musical sign o' the times that's also timeless in its experimental yet accessible musicianship. Beginning with the halting beats and clipped horns of Dave Sitek's production, Tunde Adebimpe's and Kyp Malone's voices enter with the declaration "I was a lover, before this war." From there the lyrics describe alienation ("I'm locked in my bedroom") and apathy ("Ennui unbridled, let's talk to kill time," "we're sleepwalking through this trial / And it's really a crime"). The inability of the supposedly desperate youth to fully engage in the kind outrage that causes change is underlined by the tentative beats and the feedback of white noise. On "Hours," Adebimpe's echoing wail warns to "Refuse these cruel / Unusual fools / Leave them to rule / In hollowpoint hell" while trying to summon "from the sky" the "future youth."

Less political but still pulsing with musical urgency is the riotous "Playhouses." Propelled by Jalell Burton's feral drumming, the song deconstructs the mating habits of the barfly in the lines, "Vodka cran in your hand and whose little girl are you now? / Oh I'd ask for this dance but I know you'd play like you don't know how."

The song's themes of night meetings and inner demons also appear in song of the year candidate "Wolf Life Me," perhaps TV on the Radio's most straightforward rock song (it's so close to mainstream it recently appeared during a football practice montage of all things on NBC's excellent series "Friday Night Lights). The drumming is as propulsive as a marching band and the guitars follow chord progressions that are more standard than usual for the band, but this is unmistakably rollicking indie rock. Adebimpe's lyrics are the tale of a (perhaps teenage) werewolf discovering an inner bloodlust from a curse that comes "when the moon is round and full." When he sings, "Gonna teach you tricks that'll blow your mongrel mind," you know he means it.

Uncompromised by their shift from indie label Touch and Go Records to major label Interscope, TV on the Radio remains musically adventurous with rocking drum circle tracks like "A Method" and "Let the Devil In" and the Hindi shoegaze of "Wash the Day."

Experimentalism doesn't yield the sometimes alienating coldness of Radiohead, however. The atmospheric drone of "Tonight," for instance, contains tenderness rather than irony — a rarity in modern indie rock — as Adebimpe's howl and a rhapsodically blue clarinet urge a tell-tale heart to be freed from beneath the floorboards.

"Province," with its back-up vocals from David Bowie, is the cry of hope for the generation. A power ballad of liberation and salvaging what has been damaged but not destroyed, "bursting stars" light the way as Adebimpe breaks "open the walls of this cage." Still a lover after all, "Loveless" guitars rise as Adebimpe sings, "Stand steadfast beside me and see / That love is the province of the brave." In less sturdy hands, those lines could come off as romantic naοvetι. But for TV on the Radio they're a bold proclamation of optimism and faith in cynical times.

"Return to Cookie Mountain" is delivered like an indie music sermon on the mount. Residing firmly in the province of the brave, this romantic, political record is one for the ages.

Posted Thursday, November 30, 2006

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music/tv.on.the.radio/return.to.cookie.mountain