Send "TV on the Radio " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 For their nearly decade-long existence, art-rockers TV on the Radio have received their fair share of accolades for a host of reasons—their genre-shifting mercurialness, their consistency, their injection of the falsetto into indie rock—but the ability to craft tender love songs has never been one of them.The quintet’s first two full-length studio albums, 2004’s Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babe and 2006’s Return to Cookie Mountain, brooded with tension and dread, reflecting a gnashing-of-teeth mindset that had no time or patience for affection. “There’s nothing inside me but an angry heartbeat,” vocalists Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone bellowed in unison on the opening Desperate Youth track “The Wrong Way”. But on their 2008 outing, the brilliant Dear Science, the band began to cleanup and loosen some of their swampy rhythms and tightly-wound grooves. And even though some of the cynicism remained, there were also celebratory songs like the utopia-longing dance tune “Golden Age” and the desire-as-refuge closer “Lover’s Day”. On TV on the Radio’s new album Nine Types of Light, the lust that capped off Dear Science has apparently led to love, resulting in the band finally feeling conformable enough in their own skin to approach sensual bedroom tunes. This more settled, soulful shift is immediately apparent on the album’s opener “Second Song”. The band’s previous kickoff tracks always went for sense-of-purpose stomp: the instant grind of “The Wrong Way”, the woozy, in-your-face synths of “I Was a Lover” and the post-punk “wall of sound” at the beginning of “Halfway Home”. “Second Song”, by contrast, is an unhurried builder. “Confidence and ignorance approve me,” Adebimpe deadpans over what first appears to be another darkly shaded tune. But the song slowly finds its life-affirming footing, peaking with adoring coos, syncopated rhythms and blaring horns. From there, things get even gushier on the two subsequent tracks, with Malone pillow-talking over Gerard Smith’s jovial bass lines on “Keep Your Heart”, and the superb slow jam “You” finds Adebimpe crooning, “you’re the only one I have ever loved”....full text |
| Spin |
| After leading us from the ruins to the cosmos, rock's deepest explorers just wanna snuggle Spin Rating 8 of 10 TV on the Radio have been many things in the decade since they first dive-bombed New York City's outer boroughs. Arty a cappella reductionists on 2003's Young Liars EP; sky-bound funk-slop visionaries on 2004's still-epic Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes; tenacious, politically ravaged anthemists on 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain; and most recently, a manic pixie dance band on 2008's Dear Science. Throughout, their songs have been marked by lead singer Tunde Adebimpe's to-the-heavens demon howl, producer/multi-instrumentalist Dave Sitek's searing gospel-funk hoedowns, and an ineffable sense of drama -- theirs is a sound that is meaningful but shaded, aggressive but delicate. It can burn as quickly as it can fade away. TV on the Radio make Important Music for Important Times. So, as the country claws its way back to sanity, if not normalcy, Nine Types of Light begins as a surprise of sorts: It's lovers rock. Which isn't to say this band has never loved. Guitarist Kyp Malone's "Lover's Day" from Dear Science remains an oft-quoted Brooklyn sex jam, and they are an undeniably physical band -- not quite hip-thrusters, but Adebimpe's wounded, off-kilter sensuality is a particularly unusual brand. They just haven't been this intimate about their feelings before. "I'm gonna keep your heart / If the world falls apart / I'm gonna keep your heart," Malone sings softly on the chorus of the stuttering, mandolin-accented "Keep Your Heart." Later, on "You": "You're the only one I ever loved." "Will Do" is a torch song that begins with such plainspoken unfussiness that it could appear on a Taylor Swift album. While drummer Jaleel Bunton and bassist Gerard Smith were Science's lifeblood, pumping and chugging out some fractured take on disco, now they're barely audible at times. And is that a banjo on "Killer Crane"? It all raises another question: What happened to the lupine fury? The apocalypse of the soul once proffered with such ferocity? It's still there intermittently -- "New Cannonball Blues" and the stomper "Caffeinated Consciousness" jerk the wheel into the oncoming traffic of blues rock....full text |
| Guardian |
| Considering the plaudits heaped on TVOTR's last album, Dear Science, this follow-up seems to have arrived to a rather muted fanfare. Maybe their many side-projects are to blame – the Brooklyn band have variously been acting, soundtracking, producing and recording other albums in the meantime. You can't pick fault with the music, though. Nine Types of Light is a relatively relaxed affair with a focus on the simple love song (Keep Your Heart has Kyp Malone singing tenderly: "With the world all falling apart/ I'm gonna keep your heart"). It's not the quantum leap forward they achieved with Dear Science, but you only need hear opener Second Song – which somehow blends an alt-country melody with a cosmic funk chorus requesting "Every lover on a mission, shift your known position" – to realise this band are still light years ahead of their peers....full text |
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