Customer Reviews

Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've had this album since the day it was released, and it's taken me this long to come to a conclusion regarding my feelings toward it. At first, I wanted to like it, all of it. The first song showed some hope for the album's reaching my high expectations, which were set in reference to the band's absolutely brilliant EP, "Young Liars." From track 2 onward, however, I was, for the most part, let down. The band showed true potential for greatness in their EP, but the album as a whole essentially falls short. "Wrong Way," "Staring at the Sun" (why did they cut out the vocal intro?!? it's so beautiful!), "Ambulance," and "Poppy" are the album's only truly strong tracks. The rest of the record is nice enough, but this band is capable of so much better. I originally had this rated as 3 stars, but I decided that a band with so much potential for so much better (as proven on "Young Liars") deserved at least 4.

P.S.- I haven't had the opportunity to see them perform these songs live, and I hear they put on a hell of a show. Seeing these songs played live could easily change my impression of the mediocre tracks on the album, and that fact should be taken into account.

What does "hipster" even mean?? and is the fact that this band is composed of "hipsters" that significant to the album? I will venture a guess and say no. I'm not particularly enamoured of the self-righteous wierdness of musicians who defiantly call themselves "Indie", i don't wear Rivers Cuomo brand square-rim glasses, and I never considered myself a "hipster" but I still love this CD. I just had to get that hipster rant off my chest cuz it seems like a lot of people (everywhere, not just in these reviews) have taken this band as some sort of indie rock experiment, only worth considering it in the context of all those other wierd indy guys.

i was introduced to the band by MTV2 in Italy, which was playing one of their videos at about 3am. As an avid electronic music fan and practitioner, my ears are somewhat attuned to the twisty sounds of synthesizers and unmistakable precision of drum machines, much like hippies are attracted to didgeridoos, bar chords, and Grateful Dead covers. TVOTR initially struck me as another generally enjoyable though not terribly interesting synthpop band, like Zero7 or Air or any of those other unobtrusive sorts of electro-lounge outfits. But I kept waiting for what i figured was the inevitable beat drop into a chorus or something, and the more it didn't happen, the more interested I got, cuz i couldn't quite figure out what the hell they were up to. When the song finally wound down and ended, more of a 4 minute swell than a build to an ultimate climax, i thought "that was interesting" and bought the album shortly thereafter.

This really is some very unique and somewhat unpredictable music. Regardless of what some reviewers claim, it is not anything remotely close to a Massive Attack knock-off. The sound of the band is similar to trip-hop acts, dark, brooding, somewhat lo-fi, but their songs are structured purely in terms of melody. The programming and atmosphere are constructed around surprisingly robust vocals and strong, evolving melodies that sort of drive themselves, without needing to rely so explicitly on the verse-chorus pop template. Any similarity to trip-hop is purely in the background rhythms, which as i said are more support for vocals than anything else.

Admittedly they do seem to run out of ideas towards the end of the album, about halfway through I begin to tire of it. I have to stress however, that "Wrong Way", "Staring at the Sun", "Dreams", and "King Eternal" are consistently enjoyable. As another reviewer said, if TVOTR maintains that quality on a future record it will be quite an album. I can't think of much else to say, this is really unusual stuff. it's quite apparent that these guys have a different musical sensibility than most anything else on the market.

First off, let me say how much I appreciate the ingenuity in this album. The Wrong Way is almost flawless. An announcing horn section leads you through the intro to this album. It's the only song on the album to which I would give the vaunted five stars. Staring at the Sun is the next song and the first song which displays the problems with this album as I see it. The beats don't go anywhere as adventurous as the introductions. In each song there is such an intriguing introduction. We enter into a new world, such as the one Alice in Wonderland was introduced by the rabbit. When we first enter these songs, the possibilities seem endless. Where will they take us? What horizons are approached by these intriguing artists who have presented us with something so new, so different. Unfortunately, we learn as we progress through the caverns that the highlights are all in the intros. This was all corrected, in my opinion, in The Return to Cookie Mountain. That may be the less flawed album. I listened to this album many times, trying to understand the abundant critical praise. I never understood it. Did these guys show promise...Heck yeah, but they weren't there yet, as Cookie Mountain proved. This isn't the album with which to start your TV on the Radio collection. Many people loathe reviewers like me who will only provide one star or five, but I don't normally feel inspired to write an review for the two to four album or book. This album is the could've been, should've been that Cookie Mountain was. It was upon hearing Cookie Mountain that I thought back on what was missing with this album. Maybe they should've added a more substantial bridge to the heart of the song that took us away from the workings of the song, then brought us back. Maybe this is why, other than the classic single The Wrong Way, I never made it past two to three minutes on any of the other songs. Cookie Mountain is the real deal though, and it has earned the praise the critics gave it, and it has earned repeated plays in all of my music devices.

Having recently had the supreme privilege of seeing this group perform at an intimate gig, TV has jumped from great band to full on superstars in my view. Blessed with the incredible vocal power of not one but two artistic savants (Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone), this band defies any attempt and pigeonholing. Hints of classic soul, perhaps even true doo wop might be observable, but in no way should the potential listener believe they know what this band sounds like before they put their own ears through the experience. When first listening to "Young Liars", comparisons to Peter Gabriel seemed natural, but really only stand up in a surface comparison to the vocal textures. The lyrics possess a darkness and intensity rarely seen. There is a sense of protest in their song crafting, a palpable aura of rebellion.. Not becoming anything so simple as a political statement or stance on issues, they seem to radiate an intrinsic feeling of non-acceptance to the cold layers of society. In "Staring at the Sun", which makes its way from their brilliant debut "Young Liars", the singers hang on with concentrated determination ("Oh my own voice can not save me now / It's just one more breath and then down I'll go") in front of their unique wall of sound. Occasionally, Kyp breaks out some guitar chord melodies that accent that wall, but don't expect any self gratifying guitar solo's to appear. This band works in unison to create a sound unlike any other, a sound that is refined and expanded on "Desparate Youth". This band is for real, they are truly going to be one of the greatest bands of this decade if they continue down the path they are laying.

I am puzzled by the reviews for this band. It is not only one of the most creative bands to date, along the same lines as Gorillaz, Soul Coughing, Radiohead, Morphine, ect, but also has some of the best lyrics I have ever heard. I understand the repitition of some of the beats, but come on people! We moan everyday that we don't want what MTV feeds us, but when band come up with new and original material, we base it on beats? Hello? Everyone is entitiled to their own opinion, but with corporate rock at an all time high, we should be applauding bands who think of new ways to make music.
Now the album. I love the sincerity of what lyrics come out of this band. When they sing, its something awesome. One of the first songs, "Staring at the Sun" seems to be a reminder of Queen meeting the Black Eyed Peas. It is an awesome mix of desperate vocals and a thumping bass line, which is almost like the seering heat of looking at the sun. I will admit that some of the songs can be a bit tedius and tends to droll a little. But then comes my favorite, "Ambulance" which mixes vocal doo-wop (vibe) with some awesome kid-like romance. This is their junior album, so there are some things that can and will be worked out as the group matures. Personally, this album is worth the buy and is worth being shown and heard on so-called music stations such as MTV and Clear Channel radio.

I saw these kids live and was mighty impressed. Thinking for sure their new CD would be just as good, i bought it. I was wrong. Although the CD has a few gems in it (i.e. Dreams and Ambulance especially) I'm afraid this recording lacks much of the energy and enthusiasm I experienced during their live performance. I think having more live drums along side the drum programming could have made this album a little more exciting to listen to. Check out their live show, but think twice before buying this album. Look for a live recording if you can.

TV On The Radio is yet another group that I was a little late on in terms of jumping on the wagon. I'd read a great deal of press about their debut Young Liars EP, but didn't even hear it until after I'd heard this, their newest full length. The EP was 5 tracks of raw power and it sounded like a group that had nowhere to go but up, but some of that energy seems to have been lost in the transaction to their first full length. Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing songs on Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, but overall it still feels like a transition release of a group really trying to nail things.

That's not to say there's nothing to shake you down, though, and that's apparent on the first track of "The Wrong Way." Opening with a blast of horns, the track rumbles along with a dirty-ass bassline and slippery programmed beats as horns skronk out in backing of vocalists Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone. The duo build the track into a stompalong frenzy as guitar ripples shimmer and the whole thing reaches a crescendo without ever fully rocking out. "Staring At The Sun," the only holdover song from their debut EP is a solid follow-up, and from there the group is onto the equally great "Dreams." Even though it runs a smidge on the repetitive side, the group again works the most simple of changes to create a song that feels like some weird bastard child of indie rock, drone, and R&B. Oh yeah, and it works quite well.

It's after the first third of the album where things get a smidge more uneven. "King Eternal" takes the gritty bass and mixes it with almost My Bloody Valentine-esque sheets of guitar, but the track lacks the dynamics and hooks of the opener, while "Poppy" is effective atmosphere (with huge guitars and almost tribal beats) but simply continues on for too long. Likewise, "Bomb Yourself" mixes quick bursts of guitars with more unique vocal pairings, but even a funky bassline can't sustain it for the overlong running length.

And really, that seems to be the problem with the latter half of the album in general. The acapella "Ambulence" is the only track that really stands out, both lyrically and musically. Heck, it's basically a weird doo wop track, but sounds fresh given the rest of the slightly sludgy tracks around it. There's nothing that has the amount of urgency that the opening tracks of the release have, and instead of sustaining a powerful energy the release just sort of slowly teeters away. After their exciting debut EP and some standout tracks on this release, I have no doubt that TV On The Radio is still a group to watch out for, I'll just have to remember to keep my excitement tempered a bit.

(from almost cool music reviews)

Alright, we knew that the Young Liars EP would be a tough act to follow. As I put this CD into my stereo, there was, quite naturally, a moment of anxiety. I loved the Young Liars EP, wrote a glowing review for it, threw it at my friends, etc. etc., but there was one worry: the possibility that the band would fall into a formulaic progression. The sounds on the EP, after all, stayed within the same orbits - no problem for a five song EP, but not a good idea for a career.

One listen made those worries vanish into the ether. This is not the Young Liars EP, volume 2. This is something much more complex, mature, and emotional. And yes, the Young Liars EP was all those things - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes raises it to a new level.

The best way to describe this album's indie-psych-prog-soul-techno-doo-wap would be "organic." "Hallucinatory" might work as well. The sound of the Young Liars EP was glossy and metallic, with Adebimpe's powerful voice creating humanity within the machine. Here, the machine is gone. The bass still throbs, but like a heartbeat rather than a industrial grind. Melodies evolve rather than repeat. Song structures are optional, growing out of the music rather than having melody formed around a structure. The music pulses like a living being, with layers of instruments that appear and disappear, collapsing harmonic structures, and TWO brilliant voices (Adebimpe and Malone) that sing like the music made human. Their voices are perfect complements - Malone creates a feeling of emotional instability with an unsteady falsetto, while Adebimpe sings with power and soul.

Track by track:
"The Wrong Way" - The band kicks off by pulling a Seven Nation Army, opening with the unexpected sound of horns. A martial drumbeat and thumping bass grind away. The singers, with overdubbed doo-wap harmonies, ponder the issues of African-American identity, keeping the lyrics poetic and provoking, without falling into cliche. Structure follows concept, a meditative, chorusless flow building naturally to a climax: they close with a call to the alienated - "Hey desperate youth / Oh bloodthirsty babes / Your guns are pointed the wrong way." Great way to start things off.
"Staring At The Sun" - The one holdover track. Still amazing, though the intro is lost.
"Dreams" - It reminds me of a dark reflection of "Blind" from the EP. Malone reaches to the very top of his range, a twitching mirror of Adebimpe's voice. Some particularly disturbing harmonies are created as he *almost* reaches the upper octave, falling a fraction below. The vocal melody is stacatto, adding distressed stops and starts to a soul melody. Brilliant.
"King Enternal" - The weakest track on the album, though it's by no means poor. Drums and bass grind out a funky rhythm against sustained keys and shifting vocals. Though the final product, with its anti-death-penalty sentiment and its psych-soul stylings, comes out as somewhat rough around the edges, it is to the vocalists credit that they can pull off the lyrics without seeming silly. Malone's falsetto turns a chorus that is essentially a single cuss into an anguished siren call. And, of course, they somehow manage to warn the powerful, "Cover your balls, / 'cause we swing kung fu."
"Ambulance" - A standout track, not just of the band, but of all modern bands. The two vocalists, overdubbed to chorus proportions, create an eerie, gorgeous doo-wap almost-love-song. The fact that the bass part is harmonically imprecise, and there are harmonies that seem improvised and clashing, serves only to heighten the tension and surreal emotion of the song. The melody itself is a fantastic, soulful melody. The lyrics are poetic, compelling, and even intellectually interesting - one could talk about assonance and rhyme schemes. It's easier, however, to mention what every reviewer does - the haunting, delicate chorus: "I will be your accident if you will be my ambulance / and I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast." Drive at night with this track on repeat.
"Poppy" - Somehow, this song combines some of the most normal elements on the album (what? a guitar riff?) with a dense, orchestra-like sound and an acapella breakdown. There are two clear sections, one milkshake-thick, evolving verse, then an acapella breakdown and the symphonic build that follows. It builds to a climax as they extol their "unselfish love" - "That's what the geese are all roaring about." A gorgeous acapella coda, and the song ends. I hardly know what to say about this song. There isn't anything to compare it to - suffice to say that it's beautiful, purely organic in sound, and presents a fusion that modern music has never seen before.
"Don't Love You" - Soulful, emotional, and sad. You can hear the loss in their voices, and in the wash of keys, clean guitars, strings, organ drones, and what seems to be a vibraphone. This sea of noise flows around the melody, different parts claiming prominence for mere moments before they vanish back beneath the waves of sound.
"Bomb Yourself" - This funky, psychedelic, political track recalls nothing more than a jam session with George Clinton, Gang of Four, and Radiohead. The bass and drums lay down a groove over which the rest of the song writhes. Somewhere between three and five guitars, making all manner of noodlings and noise, somehow manage to work with the vocals and bass to make a harmonic progression emerge. "Poppy" used symphonic mass, "Don't Love You" had its wash of pure, clean sounds, and "Bomb Yourself" has its complicated guitar interplay - three songs, three sources of extreme complexity.
"Wear You Out" - The organic sound turns to physical love. This is a slow-burning love/lovemaking jam like the very best sort of R&B, gradually transforming into a pulsing, jazzy improvisation over the solid bass. Somehow, it stays sexy.

The scope of their vision is stunning. This band has drawn together disparate elements and sounds into an incredibly complex living structure. Next to this, I hate to say, the EP sounds practically pop. If they continue upwards in this exponential fashion, I'd say we could be looking at what will become one of the most important bands of the decade.

What a year 2004 has become! There been a slew of groups and albums that have made me drool like a bulldog in heat, sending clear signals that despite the woeful state of the industry the independent scene is actually growing stronger: `Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes' is one fine example.




TVOTR consists of Tunde Odebimpe, Dave Andrew Sitek and Kyp Malone. The first two are a graphic designer and the producer of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs (the album features their guitarist, Nick Zinner on one of the tracks) respectively. The latter is a new addition.
Preliminaries dispensed with, lets get to ... THE MUSIC!!!! If you can picture Captain Beefheartian do wop, Pere Ubu poly-rythms and a couple of beats chucked in you are close. Yet very, very far. Take the first track `The Wrong Way': it starts off with a saxophone skronking away, then lurches into a crunchy keyboard motif which dominates the song. The feeling is akin to someone hitting you in the face with some horsemeat (I say this in the best possible way). `Staring at the Sun' has these slow beats but has a melody to kill for. It is also worth mentioning that the band also focuses on vocals. `Ambulance' uses barber quartet voices. I mean where are you going to find a band that does this?!! Or what about the primal howl in `King Eternal', which actually drowns out the wall of guitars? I could go on about the myriad of sounds which you will discover when listening to this album; a guitar noise here, a keyboard squiggle there, the odd yelp which wriggles in between the whole album. There are still so many charms to be discovered even after many listens: play it over and over and the rewards will be great. This is by far the debut of 2004.

Ok, after watching the video for "Staring at the Sun," I had to listen to the rest of this band. And while the rest of the album does not follow the same format as "Staring at the Sun," it is definitely a trip into a blend of music not often heard. However, this band is (not in similarity of sound) along the same lines as radiohead, modest mouse and mars volta. The style is unique and sometimes dischordant so that it does not appeal to every listener. But those who like to listen to an innovative and almost psychadelic blend of musical styles I would definitely recommend this album.

Now for the reviewers who dish out the rantings against this album, obviously have a much narrower perspective on what is good or not good music. Any one who polarizes this album as excellent or terrible is not qualified to review music because it is purely subjective. And for those who don't like the repetitive beats, obviously you have never taken a music theory class. Music is based on the repitition of sound. That's why people like it. They can remember something that is repeated much easier.

Sorry for the ranting but I'm a music hack and dishing out comments that are unwarranted to ANY style of music is just a pet peeve of mine. With that I'm out.