Track Listing

1. Wrong Way
2. Staring at the Sun
3. Dreams
4. King Eternal
5. Ambulance
6. Poppy
7. Don't Love You
8. Bomb Yourself
9. Wear You Out

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26330 in Music
• Released on: 2004-06-07
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Amazon.co.uk Review
The debut album from TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes singles this multi-racial Brooklyn trio out as a markedly different band from many of their new-wave New York peers. Where Yeah Yeah Yeahs are earthy and sexy, TV are synthetic, hypnotic and aloof; where The Rapture are passionate and almost aggressively funky, vocalist Tunde Adebimpe, guitarist Kyp Malone and all-rounder David Andrew Sitek present their music with a kind of cold removal that, for all its stuttering beatbox rhythms and saxophone bursts, is never exactly danceable. Indeed, the primary hook here is Adebimpe's remarkable voice: a sweet soul falsetto that recalls no-one else more than Peter Gabriel. Accordingly, the album's best track, "Staring at the Sun", is little more than a kaleidoscope of voices drifting in and out of focus--although rock trivia fans will doubtless be interested to know that distant psychedelic squall comes courtesy of Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner. It's a formula that can't quite hold firm for the whole 47 minutes, but at its best, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes moulds indie-rock into something fresh, clever and innovative. –-Louis Pattison

CD Description
Debut album from unique New York band who fit loosely into the funk-punk scene epitomized by bands like The Rapture andChk Chk Chk, but who also sport the influence of acts like Suicide, Frank Zappa, Sun Ra and the Pixies. Licenced to 4ADfrom cult US indie Touch & Go, this raw and exciting recordcrosses articulate rage with bold experimentalism.

Customer Reviews

Spooked voodoo thrills
Parping sax, dense, bludgeoning industrial bass throbs, and a cracked sleazy nursery gospel are just the first noises that hit your ears on the opening seconds of TV On The Radio's shimmering debut. Featuring opening lyrical of intent (of opener 'Wrong Way') "Woke up in a magic movie/ With the bright light pointed at me as a metaphor" This is clearly not coldplay.

Emerging out of the steamy sewers of Brooklyn, these four black guys and a token honky nerd, has had critics creaming their collective jeans since the release of debut Young Liars EP (worthy of purchase if only for their barbershop version of The Pixies' 'Mr Grieves') could for once justify the hype swooping around them. Produced by, and featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs producer David Andrew Sitek, this is sonic alchemy of the highest order. Expect the unexpected and then expect some more.

They have been dubbed 'the black Cocteau Twins' (they're not) but come across at times like a drunk angry Prince fronting My Bloody Valentine, playing art-house tribal or the 'afrofuturists' they dub themselves. Vocalists Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone swoop soulfully over and around lyric lines, one providing falsetto counterpoint to the other, melding abstract lyrics over the looping frenetic guitar, fuzzed bass and glitch drum tracks. Calling to mind the spectral early white-boy funk-punk-dub of P.I.L., the perverse genius of Brian Eno, avante-garde pop dreamers AR Kane, Talking Heads, The Wolfgang Press and a host of other early nineties 4AD record label musical refugees.

With their uncertain edgy viewpoints as outsiders observing and the frisson of technicolour genre clashes they concoct a tense, dramatic, soulful post-rocking that hovers on the edge of pop sensibilities with an eye on the murky underground before things get too comfortable. Dramatics are presented in the rubbing of frail voices against electro feedback, solitary instruments bursting free to give life to the humanity against the machines. This is truly music for metaphors.

Recent single 'Staring At The Sun' is more approachable and manages to taint the bland chorus of 'staring at the sun, standing in the sea, your mouth is open wide' with a sense of foreboding and menace as vocals joust and slide and slip off each other in, as the hypnotic groove revolves underneath like a undertow threatening to pull you under, or containing something unspeakable.Barbershop meets pseudo doo-wop harmonies on the spiralling spooky-accapella of 'Ambulance', 'Poppy' sounds, as it breaks down thrillingly from strident stomp of tribal march to spiritual vocal and back up again stronger, stranger and more soulful than either of the reference points.

Knowledge that true drama comes in creating tension in these stalking tunes that circle on the edge of the cliff without charging into the obvious sonic bombast is one of the compelling strengths of TV On The Radio. that would be disappointing if they followed them through. Conflict and no resolutions mark their work out as standing up to repeated listening to reveal more depths.

Like Shrek, TV On The Radio have layers, and while the casual listeners seeking immediate pop thrills may be disappointed, those digging in for the haul will be delighted for delving into the psychedelic fog for these strange and rewarding musical pearls.

Sons of Sun Ra
This is the debut album by this New York trio. It features superbly realised apocalyptic punk funk and jazz with a psychedelic blues twist.

If you like this New York new wave thing (whatever it's called this time round) then TV on the Radio are a great band as they push the sound forward. For me, it sags slightly in the middle at first, although rewarded repeated listens.

Perhaps not an absolute classic, but a superb debut from a very promising band.

Like nothing else
Ignore the Amazon review this is a great and affecting debut.It sounds like nothing else you have heard but will be greatly imitated in the next couple of years.It's a mix of Electro,Dub,Postrock and Jazz all held together by great songs and a beautiful voice.Vocalist Tunde Adebimpe isn't scared to push it out and unsettle you with is voice then pull you back in again with his warmth.Highlights are opener "the wrong way" and "Poppy".
This band are gonna be one of the most influential of the next ten years!