I’ve been a a fan and admirer of TV On The Radio since the one-two punch masterpieces, 2004’s Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes and 2006’s Return To Cookie Mountain. At the time, songs like “I Was A Lover” and “Province” were truly mind-boggling, resetting my expectation for what “indie rock” should and could sound like. Melding so many genres effortlessly, TV On The Radio has long been a band of great ambition and always sounded genuinely musically curious.
However, since those two albums I sorta tuned out a bit. I found Dear Science a disappointing, over-produced mess that lost the songs amid the fussy production. And I’m not sure I spent much time with 2011’s Nine Types Of Light — a record that suddenly took on far darker meaning with the loss of longtime member Gerard Smith, who died from lung cancer just after the release.
TV On The Radio has been relatively dormant since that last album, but now the Brooklyn-based band has begun to show signs of activity again, teasing out tidbits about its follow-up. There’s very little known at this point about what it’s called or when it’ll drop, we’re now starting to get something of a sense for what it could sound like. Some weeks back TV On The Radio previewed the song “Mercy,” an edgy basher full of buzzed-out guitars and strobing synths.
Today NPR Music and various public radio entities like WNYC’s Soundcheck (for whom I work) premiered a second taste with another new track, the subdued, yet beautifully soulful “Million Miles.”
Meanwhile, the song’s music video also debuted, as part of a series of six videos made by MySpace and Sitek’s Federal Prism label. This one is directed by Kyp Malone with Natalia Leite.
Compared to “Mercy,” or a lot of TV On The Radio’s back catalog for that matter, “Million Miles” is deceptively simple: With soaring falsetto and the chiming arpeggios of a Fender Rhodes keyboard, the song recalls the R&B jams on 2006’s Return To Cookie Mountain, more than say, the aggressive live wire distortion and big beats of Dear Science.
And yet, as the chorus swells with Dave Sitek’s trademark dense thickets of sound, “Million Miles” proves undeniably cathartic as Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone’s powerful vocals sing “Don’t you let love break your heart / Give it all your power.”
Whether playing sneering, throat-slitting punk rockers or crafting cavernous experiments piled high with noise hugging the periphery — it’s amazing that after all these years TV On The Radio remains a group with such uncompromising artistic vision. This song is a gorgeous reminder of why I fell in love with the group in the first place. Can’t wait to hear more.
