TV On The Radio

On 2006’s Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio played musical tour guide for an impending apocalypse, its words cautioning of war, hate, fear and technology even as generous doses of the latter steeped those prophecies in analogously chilling portent.

“Golden Age,” the summer’s first bouncy single off follow-up Dear Science, hinted at a new dawn, as if the New York five-piece had opened its shades, shrugged off its discomfort and gone late-night partying. Not exactly. The men of TVOTR haven’t reversed their course; they’re barrel-assing straight down it, which means Dear Science documents the world right after its demise, or maybe just after the inevitability of that demise has sunk in.

“Golden Age” and other such lively cuts as “Halfway Home” and “Red Dress” are indeed calls to get up and move, but not because cares have lessened. TV on the Radio are dancing because there’s no other option. Resistance has given way to total acceptance: “You’ll all shake your hips/And you’ll all dance to this/Without making a fist” (“Red Dress”).

Besides, the upbeat action on Dear Science is more than balanced by baleful down-tempo material—tunes that unleash the full potential of David Sitek’s production genius. Strings, horns (courtesy of Afrobeat pals Antibalas) and electronics merge to form the foundation for the band’s soulful, if slightly cold, art rock, atop which vocalists Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone convey strangely alluring messages of despair, like “In the gallows of the shadow of your family tree/There’s a hundred hearts or three” (“Family Tree”) and “This is beginning to feel like the bolt busted loose from the lever” (“DLZ”).

Only “Golden Age” suggests anything other than a frightening future for mankind, though it’s entirely possible its lyrics of hope allude to an alternate reality. “The age of miracles/The age of sound/Well, there’s a golden age comin’ round.” Yeah, maybe in the next life.