TV ON THE RADIO – Return to Cookie Mountain

As passionate as ever, but now with a little more polish, TV on the Radio’s second album, Return to Cookie Mountain, is their most satisfying work since they exploded onto the scene in 2003!

TV On The Radio have always been a band with a big, unapologetically ambitious sound, and on Return to Cookie Mountain, they give that sound room to breathe with a lush, expansive production. The sonic depth throughout the album is a sharp contrast with the density of their previous albums. However, Return to Cookie Mountain is hardly slick or dumbed-down for mass consumption. In fact, the opening track, “I Was a Lover,” is one of the band's most challenging songs yet, mixing a stuttering hip-hop beat with guitars of Loveless proportions and juxtaposing inviting vocal harmonies and horns with glitches and trippy sitars. “Playhouses” is only slightly less radical, with its wildly syncopated drumming and Tunde Adebimpe’s layered, impassioned singing.

At times, Return to Cookie Mountain threatens to become more impressive than likeable - a complaint that could also arguably be leveled against Desperate Youth as well - but fortunately, TV on the Radio reconnects with, and builds on, the intimacy and purity that made Young Liars so striking.