Radio On The Internet

Dear Science,
TV On The Radio
4AD, 2008
3.5 stars

This is pop music at its most modern. Political, lyrical and thoroughly musical, Science brims with crystal-clear instrumentation, elegant production and about a million instruments and effects. Its songs cover a number of styles (fuzzy guitar rock, sleazy funk and danceable electronica are covered in the albums first four tracks), making for a bit of a mixed bag - but the mix is pretty good. Tunde Adepimbe and Kyp Malone’s soulful vocals smear themselves across upbeat tracks like Golden Age and album highlight Crying, but sit back on the more subdued numbers like Family Tree – their voices are just as finely tuned to the overall sound as the plethora of instruments they employ. Overall it’s an energizing epic; a hopeful, confident pop album for what are pretty difficult times.

Artwork: C+
It's a pretty boring cover image, but I guess they figured there's enough happening in the music itself. Inside the cover there's nice fold-out liner notes - pretty text-heavy, but it makes a nice change to the stock-standard booklet. And, in the end of the day, I'm a sucker for a nice digipak.

Published in mX, Thursday October 9, 2008.