TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain (4AD)
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
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What makes a truly great record? Many things. Many things, and 'Return To Cookie Mountain' is all of them. These are they -
A great record should have ambition. In the case of 'Return To Cookie Mountain', it just knows no boundaries. What a free listening experience - how refreshing it is to hear something that thinks nothing peculiar of trying to be both the greatest pop record and most intellectually stimulating sonic experience of the year. TV On The Radio carry out many tasks simultaneously. 'I Was A Lover' - it invites you in, but with a slight warning, just getting it out of the way that this won't even particularly resemble their last record, let alone anyone else's. 'Hours' - it gets hold of your limbs and bashes them against the nearest surface, the kind of vocal hook that you want to listen to over and over until you've sussed the words, and so can join in each time it's spun. It continues, delving in to feelings which often overlap - jubilation, paranoia, torment, exhilaration - layering each one deftly, like no other band could do.
That's another thing - great records should give across the feeling that only the precise people who did create it were capable of such an achievement. Really, you couldn't attribute the sheer depth of this to any other band. It has a lot to do with the natural gifts possessed by TV On The Radio, the most prominent being singer Tunde Adebimpe's soulful, soaring vocal, used as much as an instrument as any stringed or skinned artefact to be found elsewhere on the album. He sings poignantly (the space-balladry of 'Province'), like he's attempting to start a party using only words (upcoming single 'Wolf Like Me'), and howls like all our lives depend on it (try shouting as loud as he does on 'Let The Devil In', whilst still being in tune, without your vocal chords snapping...), each method of delivery, if belonging to another singer, worthy of being called their strong point.
The talent exhibited in a great record however shouldn't be off putting, shouldn't make the listener feel like the band are some kind of untouchable entity they don't deserve to be a part of. 'Return...' does nothing of the sort. It unveils itself like a document of our current times, freaked out, confused as to its own surroundings, attempting to salvage something of worth from inside itself in a society gone jugs-up. It's inviting, wise, it's incredibly friendly. 'Dirtywhirl' for example, one of the less rampant moments, is the kind of tune you want to create problems for yourself because of, just so you can enter the correct frame of mind to properly benefit from the consoling atmosphere it creates.
All this isn't instant. At first, it's utterly baffling. But only records you could merely qualify as good do you love on first listen as much as you do on the thirtieth. The really great ones take ages. This one did. It's its own little world - the introduction of low, rumbling brass for example on 'Blues From Down Here' seemed totally alien to the rest of it at first. Now, anyone accustomed with it would class it as a highlight. 'Method', with its eerie whistles and heavy reliance on barely any instruments at all, feels like the floor dropping out of the middle of the record. At first. Sheesh, now I can't stop whistling it.
Ages to get in to. Aeons to get out of. Come 2056, this will be dusted off, and still sound as fresh as the day these cookies were cooked. Just like breathtaking albums that are nearly as old as that date is futuristic ('The White Album', 'Dark Side of the Moon', 'Trout Mask Replica'), it has mass appeal whilst also being weird. Plus, TV On The Radio have a really stupid name, just as the authors of all those classics did. Yes, that includes The Beatles.
'Return To Cookie Mountain' feels like an event every time it escapes its jewel case. It doesn't just tick all the boxes. It creates new boxes for itself, then goes about ticking them as well. Above all, each of these requisite parts for greatness need to work in tandem, need to be complimentary. And on 'Return To Cookie Mountain', they harmonise like a choir of angels. And thus? A truly great record.
Artists in this article: TV On The Radio
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