Pop songs differ greatly from one another and TV On The Radio have been finding new ways to interpret them for over a decade. But never have they sounded so content to keep things simple as they do on ‘Seeds’, their fifth album.
While ‘Return To Cookie Mountain’ and ‘Dear Science’ remain high watermarks in their history, this record represents a streamlined, uncluttered iteration of the band’s sound. It’s preoccupied with melody but unfussy, with its many delights not hidden from view by structural quirks.
That it emerged from the most turbulent time in the band’s history, following the tragic death of bassist Gerard Smith, is perhaps not much of a surprise. ‘Seeds’ sounds like an album by a band seeking simply to reconnect with music on a level that makes them happy.
Throughout, Tunde Adebimpe wraps his honeyed tones around hooks whose immediacy gives way to subtle changes in tone and inflection, while Dave Sitek’s production is warm and unobtrusive. The songs are good enough to stand on their own without receiving the bells and whistles treatment.
Happy Idiot, the album’s lead single, hinted at such a shift as its measured riff tipped over into a soaring chorus, and elsewhere the approach yields further gems. Could You is a more expressive rendering of the same blueprint, while the understated Careful You, Trouble and Test Pilot ebb and flow to counterpoint its brass-led denouement. Lazerray, meanwhile, chugs forward under the steam of surprisingly direct power chords and a staccato vocal.
‘Seeds’ will leave some TV On The Radio devotees cold, particularly those determined to cling to the dense compositions and hard-to-pin-down melodies of some of their early work, but for those willing to accept it as a meticulous, infectious pop record there’s plenty here to soak up.
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