IN REVIEW: TV On The Radio - "Seeds"

For their fifth album, following three and a half years after their last and first since the tragic loss of original member Gerard Smith to cancer, TV On The Radio are intent on not dwelling in the doldrums for too long. Themes of loss are present throughout Seeds, but they're tempered with love and hope; it's laid bare from the get-go in Tunde Adebimpe's first words on opener Quartz ("How much do I love you? How hard must we try to set into motion a love divine?"). There it is again in the sultry, multilingual stunner Careful You and it's simple-yet-soaring chorus ("I will care for you / oh, careful you"). For every expression of sadness and heartbreak, there's a rallying cry; admissions of hurt are countered by calls for resiliency and a challenge issued to walk proudly with open hearts and minds.

Perhaps intentionally, the album's most downtrodden lyric accompanies its brightest, most thrilling song; Happy Idiot bounces along on a synth-kissed, snappy rhythm while Adebimpe croons about the "long way down" and a deep-seeded desire to forget loss, blame and guilt. seemingly by any means necessary. Its juxtaposition of dark emotions and bright soundtrack doesn't make it harder to groove to, but perhaps allows the message to hit with more force once it's uncovered.

Seeds will draw some criticism for easing up on the adventurous spirit that hallmarked their first decade and change, but the cold hard fact is even some of the album's most straightforward and reflective songs bear some uncompromising sonic colouring. Take Test Pilot, which would be an incriminating dose of blatant pop posturing in a lesser group's hands but hits a sweet spot here, and ascends beyond mere chart fodder thanks to some tasteful dissonance and haunting synth just below the surface. Or Trouble, a simple acoustic song that rides a thick, percussive half-time beat and a particularly headphone-friendly production turn by guitarist Dave Sitek well past the closed-minded limits of contemporary pop taste.

Even still, there is admittedly a bit of a lull around the midway point, which makes the distorted crunch of back-to-back rockers Winter and Lazerray so refreshingly welcome. The former takes its time to truly arrive, but hits a gleefully rough groove about halfway through before the song starts piling on sound. The latter is markedly more to the point, taking full flight from its first note and refusing to relent. It's their most convincing and thrilling rock song since Wolf Like Me.

All told, though, Seeds isn't really a rock record any more than it is a pop record. It finds TV On The Radio not so much guiding their songs toward the mainstream as attempting to guide the mainstream toward them; any such intentions notwithstanding, some purists will surely turn up their noses at the more direct approach to the songs in spite of their undeniable appeal. That said, Seeds remains a very interesting record with enough variety in its sonic choices to keep the open minded more or less consistently engaged.

It's also an endearingly hopeful record that wouldn't have been faulted for staying in shadow. At its end, just like its beginning, Seeds finds hope in the hopelessness, through the title track's final lyric: "Rain comes down like it always does / This time I've got seeds on ground". It's a definitive statement for a record that is a definitive statement in itself; there is room for both sadness and celebration here. By acknowledging both dark and light impulses equally, TV On The Radio has struck a wholly rewarding balance.

November 18, 2014 • Harvest

Highlights Careful You • Happy Idiot • Lazerray