Are you a futurist?

It’s not very often that an album can live up to the hype. Sometimes by the time you finally get your clammy hands on that plastic case, tear into the cellophane wrapper, and put the disc into your player you have already made up your mind. But the new TV on the Radio album, Return to Cookie Mountain might have actually surpasssed it.

All summer, I feverishly read every nugget of press and always found someone glowing about this album. Filter Magazine had a lengthy feature and Pitchfork had their typical over-the-top exclamation point! of a review. But, was it deserving of all that hype? Was this yet another example of the type perspective-less mob freakout music journalism that catapulted bands like the Arctic Monkeys? In an era when any form of pop art is leaked, spoiled and panned by the online peanut gallery months ahead of time, its hard to believe claims of “Best Album in the HISTORY of Britpop.” So call me skeptical.

But upon listening, I found this album amazing top to bottom. It’s a swirl of fuzz-box atmospherics and cosmic distortions. It’s a smash-up of indie neo-soul noise rock and electonic loops. Its a blast musical explosions and soaring falsetto vocal melodies. New wave analog drum machines, afrobeat breaks, bleeping burbles and the ferocious Animal-esque rock pounding. I cannot even describe a genre this thing fits into. TV on the Radio sounds like a subconcious music encyclopedia entry; a history lesson of every style and era of music, but flavour injected with the band’s signature avant garde and off-kilter futurist perspective.

Take a listen to this track, the visionary and psychedelic wash of melody, ‘Province.’