TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

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Free Music Notes for Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

Free Music Review: Organic Tunes
Hit: 5 Stars

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.

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