Appreciating production and product go hand in hand on Return to Cookie Mountain, the latest release from indie rockers TV on the Radio.
The album’s sheer intensity of sound from track to track induces a disposition not unlike that of being caught up in a whirlwind melodrama.
Return to Cookie Mountain is set in motion with the lustful and longing feel of “I Was a Lover,” a broken waltz of indie noise. Singer Tunde Adebimpe takes the lead in this slow dance of a track, his voice steadily flowing as he remarks, “I was a lover before this war/Held up in a luxury suite/Behind a well barricaded door/Now that I’ve cleaned up, gone all legit/I can see clearly/Round hole, round hole, square peg don’t fit…”
The first single from the album, “Hours,” is a perfect example of TV on the Radio’s capacity to manipulate layered vocal harmonies to create an unnerving ambience throughout the track.
“Wolf Like Me” is an upbeat, percussion-driven chant, with strumming guitar keeping the pulse as Adebimpe intones a tale of primal lust, “Charge me your day rate/I’ll turn you out in time/When the moon is round and full/Gonna teach you tricks that’ll blow your mongrel mind/Baby doll I recognize/You’re a hideous thing inside/If ever there were a lucky kind/It’s you, you, you, you…” The track, which was once set to lead the album but moved back before its official release, is as much a power ballad as Return to Cookie Mountain has to offer.
The band whistles in “A Method,” before bringing in the rhythm pushed by acoustic clapping and crooning harmonization from the vocals and metallic clanging. Vocals swoop and dive on the whimsical “Dirtywhirl,” an apt tribute to the ancient warrior goddess Durga, as Adebimpe sings, “Oh, there is a murderess amongst us/Her love is a violent spiral/Hurling in upon us/Conjured up at the birth of the world/Durga is a dancer/Mindless questions find no answers/Slicing through the ether/Yeah she’s gleaming like mother of pearl…”
The end of the album in no way shines as the lead tracks, but still holds attention with a morose ballad in “Snacks and Martyrs.”
The band also offers an alternate, but boring mix of “Hours” before sealing Return to Cookie Mountain.
Return to Cookie Mountain excels in allowing the production of the album to create a consistent mood and the instrumentation to hold the listener’s focus – all of which make the album one of this fall’s true standouts.