For their fourth record TV on the Radio decided to drop a lot of their indie-rock associations and go in a more R&B/funk inspired direction. While lead vocalist Tunde Adebimpe is more than suited to such a stylistic change (and he's the only member of the band that comes out of this record still looking good--his vocals are uniformly great throughout), the band backing him up decidedly is not, and this record just ends up being an experiment that doesn't work. The first problem is the production--it's way,
way too thin to be a "proper" funk record. Where's the bass? What's the deal with these processed, weak-ass drums? "Golden Age" is one of the ugliest-sounding things I've ever heard, a hideous "funky" thing that sounds like five different bands all playing at once (Actually, that description makes the song sound more interesting than it actually is). "Family Tree" is a maudlin, keyboard-drenched ballad, "Shout Me Out" is too minimalistic for its own good, and "Lover's Day", compared to the music made by actual funk groups, is laughable. Only "DLZ" works, and unsurprisingly it's the track on the album that hews closest to the style found on
Return to Cookie Mountain. I respect what the band is trying to do here, and certainly this isn't a lazy or boring record at all, but the production choices are uniformly awful and it's hard to listen to this incredibly talented group laboring away at a style that just doesn't suit them at all. Worth a listen, but overall a real disappointment.
MY RATING:
5.9
TV on the Radio - "Love Dog"
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