Music Matters
Nine Types of Light makes for a more mellow TV On The Radio: A band with a coolidentity crisis
Nine Types of Light
TV On The Radio
In 2008, New York’s TV On The Radio put out one of the most highly-acclaimed albums of that year with the rabble-rousing, roof-rattling Dear Science. The album’s attitude was unapologetically fierce, a true musical haymaker that seemed to deem everything else released in its wake hopelessly tame.
But the album’s last song, “Lover’s Day,” pulled back on the toughness for a triumphant ode to carnal pleasures, with two people making love against a cacophonous musical backdrop that seemed like the end of the world.
TVOTR’s follow-up album, Nine Types Of Light picks up, at least in attitude, where that song left off. Many of the rough edges of Dear Science have been smoothed out here, as the band tried to show that the entanglements of love can be as tricky as anything else that faces us on the modern landscape.
Several of the new album’s songs have relationship issues at their core. That allows lead singers Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe to work their falsettos for every bit of soulful emotion. Malone takes the lead on the restrained “Keep Your Heart,” which is seductive, if a bit sleepy. On “You,” a buzzy mix of languid guitar and swirling synths, Adebimpe is frustrated by his lover but still can’t resist.
Maybe it’s the subject matter, but Nine Types Of Light might be TV On The Radio’s most instantly accessible album to date. “Will Do” has all the makings of a hit, with flicking guitar lines adding to a lovely, soothing chorus. Positivity abounds on the opening track “Second Song," which grows out of Adebimpe’s spare, self-doubting verses into a horn-filled refrain that Sly Stone would have loved, as all doubts give way “into the light.”
All of this makes for a more sedate TVOTR, which, of course, might worry some fans. Indeed, there is nothing here that’s quite as propulsive as some of the thunderous tracks on Dear Science. “No Future Shock” and “Repetition” work up acceptable mayhem, but neither is anything we haven’t heard before from the band.
Closing track “Caffeinated Consciousness” fares a bit better, even if it never quite delivers on the promise of the staccato horn blasts that play off the sinuous bass line. Truth be told, most of the up-tempo songs lack the focus of the more contemplative material. And the back-and-forth between wooing and walloping makes for cohesion issues.
Still, there is a sense that the band is broadening its horizons, which is admirable considering they could have done carbon copies of Dear Science ad infinitum and not many fans would have complained. “Killer Crane” is an example of this evolution, as the band proves it can be experimental without its signature pounding beats and thudding bass. In fact, the song sounds like some of mid-era Led Zeppelin’s trippy expansiveness, with organ, cello and exotic guitar stretching out over some cosmic musings in breathtakingly pretty fashion.
Yes, I just described a TV On The Radio song as pretty. But that’s one of the coolest things about this band. They’re unafraid to defy expectations, even if they have to suffer a bit of an identity crisis to do so.
Nine Types Of Light may not have the sonic adventurousness of some of its predecessors, but it’s also the band’s most emotionally connected album to this point. That’s a trade off, but it’s one that keeps stagnation, the ultimate devourer of all musical careers, safely at bay.
SAMPLE NINE TYPES OF LIGHT
"Will Do"
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"Second Song"
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"Killer Crane"
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