I saw TV On The Radio when they were in town, at First Ave. My gratitude to Sarah and Jesse for providing the occasion and transportation, and to their friend Luke, who volunteers at St Cloud's KVSC, for the plus-one ticket. I had been familiar with TVotR since their first full-length, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes. As any fan will tell you, that album made for a fantastic major-release debut, and provided a thorough look at their sound, which is extraordinarily unique - to my way of thinking, post-rock is as accurate as you can get with a single label. The album featured some breathtaking highlights, such as the bewildering a capella Ambulance, and the thrumming brilliance of the first track, The Wrong Way [could this be the finest opening seconds in the history of recorded sound?]. The EP Young Liars features some fan favorites, such as the title track, and the truly masterful Satellite, which is the ultimate encapsulation of what TVotR sounds like at their absolute best.

TVotR's set was remarkably high-intensity. The primary vocalist, Tunde Adebimpe, seemed barely in control of his own energy, flinging wild hand-gestures as he performed. Guitarist/founding member [along with Adebimpe] David Andrew Sitek came across as a kind of ROCKnROLL! doofus, assuming superstar postures and whipping his strumming hand into a blur, once or twice taking a line on the microphone from Adebimpe. He opened the show with a set of chimes dangling from the head of his guitar; during quieter moments he would position them near a microphone and waggle the instrument. When he took the chimes down after the first song, it seemed their night was over, but he hung them right back up their for the third song, and there they stayed for most of the rest of the show. I hope he drilled a hole in his guitar specifically for those chimes, like Eric Clapton and his cigarette. In general, TVotR's songs aren't particularly fast, or slow, exhibiting instead a kind of grinding persistence of tempo. Live, however, they infused a definite rock sensibility into a number of songs, playing them hard and fast. The joint, as they say, was jumping. Sadly, however, this approach subtracted from the masterpiece Satellite, sacrificing the tone and fascinating vocal interplay found on the album for less-appropriate speed and power.

I had put off picking up their new full-length, Return to Cookie Mountain, before the show - I had heard it wasn't as good. I'll only tell you once - don't believe it. This album fully develops the post-rock notions hinted at in TVotR's prior releases; this is one of those rare records on which every track has something of value. More than that, it works slickly as a complete and finished work; by comparison, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes seems like a collection of unrelated songs, sparsely populated with [granted, superb] highlights. TVotR's songs have always had interesting structure: each is clearly determined to shed the verse-chorus-verse model to forward its own structural agenda, but many of the first-generation songs [particularly toward the end of Desperate Youth] had little but structure. On Cookie, the structure is maintained, and is built upon with a vocal melody here, a hook there, and suddenly, where there was only foundation is now a complete piece of music, each of which is strung together until the album is exhausted. Cookie maintains this flow even as its tone is manipulated, opening with the postmoderntechnopunk I Was A Lover [bass-drum triplets?!] and moving into something slower, something fast, something creepy, something loud. On an album full of stand-out songs, one of the highlights is Dirtywhirl, which masquerades in its opening seconds as a slow song, but quickly unfolds into a relentless and infectious pulse, which features the best use of jinglebells ever. Also noteworthy is the slow and starkly beautiful Tonight. Guitarist Kyp Malone takes over the mic on a couple songs, providing an interesting contrast. The release of Cookie which features bonus tracks is well-worth seeking out; after two or three minutes of silence, it kicks back in with another mini-album, including a more driving remix of the sinister Hours. The last of the bonus tracks, however, Things You Can Do, while ill-fitting with the rest of the album [hence its bonus-track position], stands tall by itself, transitioning unexpectedly from quiet and introspective into gorgeous, dark, psychedelic, jaw-dropping afrobeat! It's hard to imagine a more welcome termination for such an album.

In light of its graceful and dexterous cohesion, I believe Return to Cookie Mountain is the most appropriate first-time foray for future fans into TV On The Radio. Become their friend, bind yourself to them with Cookie, and then allow yourself to indulge in their lesser recordings.