A 'difficult' second album is surely less of a daunting task if you're a pretty difficult band to begin with. But, as someone wise once quipped, all that is difficult is beautiful, and 'Return to Cookie Mountain' is beautiful to within a millimetre of its weird and wonderful life, despite sounding like a lurid Technicolor Sesame Street gone big screen.
There is a definite progression from 'Desperate Youth Bloodthirsty Babes' - the affecting tribal chants remain, but the spirituality is upped, every track drenched in gorgeous washes of haunting atmospherics that hold you deep within the grasp of TVOTR's hypnosis.
'I Was a Lover's cut and paste feel splices bleak claims that "We liked to party" over chainsaw sounds and mockingly infantile piano taunts. David Bowie joins the proceedings for 'Province', a melodic bounce that could have done without the star-studding to prove its worth, for TV On The Radio's trippy angularity captures a certain strange comfort that embraces both the dark and sinister, and soothing hope.
Although the lyrics are frequently indecipherable, those which can be heard are declared with a mellow nonchalance and desperate edge that, at times, verges on the sublime. Breaking from the usual, bizarre falsetto and myriad vocal kaleidoscopes shine all the more prominently in unparalleled velveteen glory. 'Wolf Like Me' proves this perfectly: its upbeat urgency anchors the song as dynamics twist and turn with majestic ball-gown elegance. Similarly, 'Playhouses' and 'Dirtywhirl' are like charming sonic funfairs, spinning with percussive jangles and spacey chimes.
In short, to be unashamedly decadent, this is the gospel for the summer. A majestic epiphany, a spellbinding antidote to World cup anthems and the guilty pleasures of the Euro-pop that's soon to making its way back from the Med, along with lobster tans and herpes. By contrast to such tawdriness, 'Return to Cookie Mountain' is fascinatingly dense, soulful and utterly divine.
Em Gosling
Return to Cookie Mountain was tagged with TV On The Radio by thesvenhunter
