TV on the Radio- Return to Cookie Mountain

TV on the Radio’s purpose is stated in their name: they want to make music that makes you see things. But how do you do that? Well, you make it immersive, meaning that the sound is engineered in such a way as to feel like it is surrounding you. For an example think of Phil Spector’s Wall of the Sound. You feel in the middle of the music and an “image” that is being created by it. This image is based on the instruments and melody, along with that immersive engineering that create something beyond just a simple chorus. This reaches beyond, or rather invites one to reach beyond the auditory. It is strange since the assumption is that sight is sight and hearing hearing and ne’er the twain shall meet, but here we are.

This album is about a breakup (“I Was a Lover”) and the attempts to get over it. There is a theme of being washed away (“Playhouses”) but also cleansed (“Wash the Day”). There is also a theme of orchards or trees (“Tonight” and “Wash the Day”) which works in conjunction with the water imagery, and also making the person just broken up with the Mother of All Evil, Eve. The solution might lie in “Wash the Day” when the narrator takes time to contemplate a bird. “It was a technological feat/ this little bird.” He’s not the same person from “Dirtywheel” or “Blues from Down Here” he’s actually trying to become part of the world around him, or at least realizing there is one.

While the themes tend to be very deep, the lyrics, and even the melodies tend to be simple. The same four notes played over and over again, then layered and twisted to make a musical photograph. It is awe inspiring to realize because it is so well done that it almost unnoticeable. The same can be said for the lyrics, where the song revolves around one or two phrases, like “Love is the Land of the Brave” or “There is hardly a method you know.” These phrases are given special emphasis, while other lyrics are slurred or covered up by the production.

3/5 I’m not completely in love with this album. The songs, with the exception of “Wolf Like Me,” just aren’t catchy, or maybe not energetic enough for me to return to it. But you can’t get music like this anywhere else.