TV on the Radio: Seeds

Seeds
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Artist: TV on the Radio
Genre: Rock
Label: Harvest records

This, the band's fifth record, and first since the untimely passing of bassist Gerard Smith, feels like a subtle sea-change, but then TV on the Radio have always marched to their own beat. Seeds is a more lo-fi response to 2008's Dear Science, channelling what David Sitek has called "anti-goals", though there are still familiar signposts (doo-wop and gospel, for example). And there is a looking to the past to make sense of the present: Happy Idiot filters New Order, and there are a clutch of songs that meditate on post- punk, which sit alongside the Ramones-baiting Lazerray. Some songs have a strange energy. Right Now and Winter have interesting ideas, but are infused with a lethargy, perhaps lacking the focus that Sitek's production usually harnesses. But when it works, as on Test Pilot, it is clever, immersive, and something they do so well. tvontheradioband.com

Siobhán Kane

Siobhán Kane is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in culture