TV on the Radio - NineTypes of Light

Thu 7th Apr, 2011 in Music Reviews

Between three albums (four if you count their rare self-released experimental debut) and several EPs, it’s not hard nor hyperbolic to say that TV On The Radio have become flag bearers of the art rock movement. The Brooklyn quintet was genre-defying, imaginative and provocative with everything from their instrumentation to their lyrical content before those tropes became a fashion statement. Having covered everything from political turmoil to groovy dance tunes, album number four proved a difficult beast from the onset.

On Nine Types of Light, we find the band doing something almost threatening to their listeners: it challenges them to listen to a relaxed album of soulful love ballads like lead single Will Do. However Dave Sitek’s impeccable production brings each song together. Much has been said in the press about how Nine Types of Light was recorded in Sitek’s Los Angeles home, mostly focusing on how the difference in culture and weather reflect in the music. But he also shows a greater control of the album’s direction, pushing the once-notable rhythm section of Gerard Smith and Jaleel Bunton further down the mix, opting for a layered sound of strings, horns, even a banjo and acoustic guitar on Killer Crane to compliment vocals that have had their intense swagger of past albums replaced ironed out in favour of a smooth croon. For an album that at first appears to be a relaxed affair, there is still the level of perfectionism that surrounds each note played.

Not to say the energy is completely gone. No Future Shock sees Tunde doing his best Andre 3000 impression in what can be described as Hey Ya! for the cynical and jaded. New Cannonball Run sees Tunde dueling at once with Kyp Malone’s backing vocals and electric beats, as he pleads “You’ve got me fucked up and dried up and fed up to get up and bleedin’ like I’m mad at this song”. But even when they should be at their angriest, they appear to hold back. The screaming refrain of Repetition lacks the ferocity that defined them during Return to Cookie Mountain and Caffeinated Consciousness leads itself to an arguably anticlimactic and calm crooning chorus.

But this album isn’t about the TV On The Radio of yesteryear. If anything, this is the band’s most creatively comfortable release yet, the sound of a group who are no longer struggling to find what exactly fits with each other or their sound. They may be singing about “keeping your heart” and emulating gospel sermons (literally in the first few seconds of the album opener Second Song ), but their energy is as high as on album one. You can call them ageing, losing their edge or moving away from what made them great, but you can never call them stagnant.