thus spake drake: Between Soda Lake and Butter Bridge

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Between Soda Lake and Butter Bridge

Album: TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Stream the tracks

I was a lover, before this war
- "I Was a Lover" TV On The Radio

2006's album of the year has finally dropped... so does that mean we can all stop reviewing and get back to listening? Seriously... no? Alright...

Sometimes, when your immersed in an atmosphere, like... say... a room with dirty diapers; it's hard to remember what 'fresh' is like. Well, in an environment where a lot of indie rock sounds a lot like it's forebearers, TV On The Radio are like a breath of the freshest air a lung can breath. When their previous album Desparate Youth and Bloodthirsty Babes, dropped two years ago, it was so original sounding that David Bowie almost flattened three other Brooklyn bands driving himself to try and acquire this new chameleon skin.

Bowie actually appears on Return to Cookie Mountain, singing on "Province", one of the bands highlights. The first single, "Wolf Like Me," is the closest they get to a rock song structure, and it certainly has to please their label (bohemoth Interscope) that it just might draw more then just us indie rock snobs to the party.

Other highlights (in an album chock full of 'em) include the opening track, "I Was a Lover," and "Playhouses." The US release has some bonus tracks that I'm ignoring in looking critically at the album (note that they're calling them non-album tracks.)

GET YOUR TIVO/DVR SET: TV on the Radio plays Late Night with David Letterman tonight...

Cookie Mountain is a reference to World 4 in Nintendo's Super Mario World 2 game - just above Vanilla Dome, between Soda Lake and Butter Bridge

Previously:
Lupus like me (Video/Single for "Wolf Like Me")
TV On The Radio On TV