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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Monday, March 18, 2024

TV on the Radio gracefully return to indie rock world with latest release

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"Seeds" delves deeper into pop influences, breaking new ground for TV on the Radio.

TV on the Radio’s fifth studio album “Seeds” should have been a colossal letdown. It’s been eight years since the jangling, alt-synth rockers shook their punk Brooklyn stomping ground with 2006’s critical darling “Return to Cookie Mountain,” and three slow years since they released anything at all.Meanwhile, the band was forced to part ways with major label Interscope, fresh on the heels of bassist Gerard Smith losing his battle with lung cancer. This has practically handed “Seeds” every excuse to be a lazy wash-up of an album, a eulogy to the band’s fizzling status as indie rock vanguards.

Instead, TV on the Radio (TVOTR) bundled up every would-be death sentence -- changing band members, insane mainstream commercial success, an old studio so gentrified it’s been turned into a J. Crew -- and used them as fuel for their sturdiest, most surprisingly genuine work to date. Released yesterday, “Seeds” is the superior follow-up to 2011’s lackluster “Nine Types of Light,” bursting with color against a backdrop of unshakable loss. The product is a perfect balance of earworm hooks, angsty sleaze and pathos for the dance floor. It is, quite simply, a beautiful new album.

“Seeds” pulls listeners right in with “Quartz,” an opening track that rumbles with layered chants and singer Tunde Adebimpe’s trademark gravelly crooning. His voice dripping with melodic, ethereal synth, Adebimpe beckons fans into the kind of waking dream conjured around a desert campfire or a tripped-out hipster seance -- a little bit sinister, a lot irresistible.

It’s an apt segue into TV on the Radio’s latest sonic phase, one characterized by catchy, radio-ready bits and pieces woven into a much darker, much shadier landscape. No doubt, this change has been directly influenced by the band’s literal move across the country to record their new album, shedding the weightier aggression of New York for the baked, sun-scorched, lush oasis of Los Angeles. “Seeds” is their newest experiment in mixology, its surreal fusion of light and dark working gorgeously throughout the next three tracks: “Careful You,” “Could You” and “Happy Idiot.”

If the middle of the album slumps into overly sentimental territory -- and one could certainly argue that “Test Pilot” and “Love Stained” edge up to Coldplay-level self-pity -- it does so with a crunchy pop earnestness that renders the band immune to too much cynicism. TVOTR has endured real loss and molded it into soulful phrases that the listener can feel rather than mock. So when Adebimpe whines lines like “I was such a fool, thinking you’re the only one,” we can cut him some slack, shrug our shoulders and keep on dancing.

This is an impressive feat given the indie heroes’ trajectory from experimental wizards to producers of dreamier, more accessible and arguably watered-down music. With "Seeds," the group grabs at undeniably stronger pop influences: the off-key catchiness of LCD Soundsystem sieved through a Sonic Youth blanket of fuzzy, atmospheric grooves. It’s more familiar than ever. Gone are the days of the clanging, aggressive, what-instrument-are-they-even-playing-right-now energy of TVOTR’s older albums.

But who’s complaining? TV on the Radio doesn’t need stadium-sized guitar bursts or an on-top-of-the-world mentality to hold their ground as a consistently great rock band. They have mastered a balance between funk, gloom and likeability, and their production is more polished than ever before.

“Seeds” might not be TV on the Radio’s most inventive work, or their most notable. But this time around more and more listeners are invited into their sexy, melodic murk. New fans have an easy access point while veterans experience a gentle transition as the classic band mourns and matures without letting anyone down. After years of growing pains, TVOTR has gracefully smoothed out the jittery, jumbled sound of years past. Listeners can collectively sit back, take a breath and thank them for it.

Summary “Seeds” might not be TV on the Radio’s most inventive work, but this time around more listeners are invited into their sexy, melodic murk as the classic band mourns and matures without letting anyone down.
3.5 Stars