TV On The Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes (Touch and Go) 9+
I’ve had no complaints with the New York music scene. I didn’t care that The Strokes have nothing important to say, as long as their songs could spark excitement, even if we don’t know what exactly we should be excited about. But like Two Tone superheroes, decked out in afros, wild beards and nerd glasses, TV On The Radio swooped in last year with a heavy, heavy little EP that outweighed the combined creativity of a dozen Williamsburg bands. Young Liars transcended fashion and hip influences with deep lyrics and original music. Who else could pull off doo-wop backed by spacerock drones and not sound ridiculous, much less brilliant? The key was Tunde Adebimpe’s hotshot vocals. Here’s someone with real pipes. Never mind the comparisons to Peter Gabriel, a careful listen to this album and their live shows reveals a man with a soul on fire, channeling the spirit of a dozen soulmen and possibly a voodoo loa. In the 2002 movie Jump Tomorrow, Adebimpe played the lead character George, a timid, nerdy, bespectacled wallflower who fantasized about letting loose with his alter-ego, Jorge. Musically the band embodies that persona and more, with more on their minds than their naughty bits. Angry at the gods and government, empathetic with the sufferers, patient with the misguided, darkly romantic, both Adebimpe and Kyp Malone have come up with some killer poetry. The opening track, “The Wrong Way” Malone tackles prickly issues of race, materialism and violence – “hungry for those diamonds/served on little severed bloody brown hands/…oh the bling drips down/fallin’ down just like rain…Hey, desperate youth!/Oh, blood thirsty babes!/Oh your guns are pointed/your guns are pointed the wrong way.”
“Dreams” starts like a downbeat dirge, proclaiming “all your dreams are over now/and all your wings have fallen down.” But the flurry of words, spinning abstractly around grief, are something to behold, delivered assertively, with conviction – “I know your heart can’t grieve/what your eyes won’t see/but you were my favorite moment/of our dead century…bartering bellowing barracking blundering pillaging plundering living and lavishing hammerings harrowing flourishing flattening leveling reveling wrecking and ravaging savoring savaging.” “Ambulance” is the most unique love song in recent memory. Use on that mash mix with caution, depending on if your sweetie can stomach the morbid metaphors, “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/and I will be your one more time if you will be my one last chance/oh fall for me.” The music consists solely of doo wop vocals, but the arrangement is totally fresh, and Adebimpe delivers the words with exquisite sensitivity.
Some may be disappointed by the relative lack of melodic hooks and driving rhythms that they’d expect from a hotly anticipated debut. Desperate Youth will not be your windows-down summer party music. This is night music, to be absorbed with alcohol or bittersweet sex. While the sound is spare, the songs are full of innovative ideas, from jazzy brass and unique spiritual harmonies to abstract post-rock soundscapes. “Poppy” is one of the more perfectly balanced numbers with just enough scratchy guitar to provide a backdrop for the breathtaking, even uplifting acapella outro. “Don’t Love You” almost slows things down too much, a Velvet Underground organ-dirge that starts to drag. “Bomb Yourself” is laid upon an almost dub reggae bass, a pithy message that in war, what comes around, goes around. Not to neglect the erotic, “Wear You Out” winds up the album with a 7:21 meditation on lust. With sensuous flute contributed by Martin Perna, Adebimpe and Kyp Malone harmonize and coo, “Let’s pursue this argument in darkness/curtains drawn, limbs entwined…/let me wear you out/let me make you mine.” Many who even own this album might not notice this sexy conclusion for several listens, as it catches you offguard after the previous stern cuts.
TV On The Radio may produce more extroverted, crowd-pleasing material in the future, but time will most likely reveal Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes to be an imperfectly groundbreaking album with a long lasting cult appeal.
