By Isaiah Smith/entertainment editor
Avant-garde rock band TV on the Radio keeps it real by keeping it weird on its new album Return to Cookie Mountain.
“ I make s*** up as I go along,” David Sitek co-founder of the band said in an interview with URB magazine. “I think the one thing I’ve learned is that I never really know anything.”
One song I do like is “Hours.” The vocals sound digitized in parts, and the music is ethereal and rhythmic. The beat and the guitar are very driving, giving a nice flow to the music.
Still, something about this band’s music makes me want to turn the speakers off. The music is so … weird. This band takes the idea of melody and throws it out the window.
“ Prettiest World I Know,” one of the slower tracks, is the best chance this album has for a single, and even that is a slim one.
“ I kinda want to do things that don’t make any sense,” Sitek said in the URB magazine interview, “like produce a dark, bloody vampirical album with Jewel or have a séance and get John Denver’s voice on it.”
Well, if he does not want to make sense, Return to Cookie Mountain will be one of Sitek’s crowning achievements—in his opinion at least.
“ I Was A Lover,” which opens the album, has an off-putting beat. The vocals are high-pitched and weird. However, it might make a good track for a mixed CD.
“ Let the Devil In” … oh, where to begin with this song. The music and the vocals both make my skin crawl. What in the world were these guys thinking and how high were they when this song was created? The world will never know.
Maybe if someone was as wasted listening to Return to Cookie Mountain as the band was when they created it, it would make sense.
At first I thought the song “Wash The Day” was good until five minutes in when it was still going. TV on the Radio just went on way too long with this track; it sucks.
One of the songs sounds like the band left the recorder on between sets. “Fade Up” is not a song. It is a mistake being presented as a song, very cheap.
TV on the Radio manages to sound the same even though it tries so hard to be different on every song because it all sucks the same.
On “Same Wave,” the vocals sound deep and weird. It is almost good, but it does not make it all the way there.
I had such high hopes with the name Return to Cookie Mountain, it sounded enchanting, but the enchantment fades quickly.
Overall, TV on the Radio delivers a weird, unsettling album with little-to-no redeeming qualities.
I give it two stars. At least they sound different, not good, but different.
