Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

Rolling Stone (3/18/04, p.73) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "[The Brooklyn band is] indebted to everything from late-Eighties indie rock to classic soul music....DESPERATE YOUTH is a rebuke to their retro peers: Not all the good ideas have been taken already." Rolling Stone (p.152) - Included in Rolling Stone's Top 50 Records Of 2004 - "DESPERATE YOUTH is more proof that sometimes the best records are the most challenging." Spin (p.66) - Ranked #12 in Spin's "40 Best Albums of the Year" - "Easily the year's dizziest album, their debut sounds like Kanye West producing a punkabilly space-rock troupe." Q (p.124) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[U]niquely intriguing, weaving in influences that have no right to mesh as coherently as they do....Singer Tunde Adebimpe has fashioned a genuinely novel sound." Uncut (p.100) - 4 stars out of 5 - "A far more effective transcription of frantic, funky Manhattan than the CBGBs set ever dreamt of..." Uncut (p.76) - Ranked #36 in Uncut's "Best New Albums of 2004" - "This smart and soulful transcription of Manhattan's frantic energy is one of the year's better discoveries." Magnet (p.67) - Ranked #15 in Magnet's "The 20 Best Albums Of 2004" - "[A] subway rumble through 60 years' worth of the five boroughs' golden greats." Mojo (Publisher) (p.116) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[A] debut album that elegantly pursues their quest to sound like nothing they recognise....TVOTR are coming over loud and beautifully weird."

TV on the Radios Young Liars EP was a wonderful surprise, signaling the arrival of one of the most distinctive acts to seemingly come out of nowhere during the 2000s. Its transformation of strange sonic bedfellows like post-punk and doo wop, powerful vocals, and experimental leanings into songs that were challenging and accessible was no small feat; indeed, the EP was so accomplished that it begged the question -- and ratcheted up the expectations -- of what TV on the Radio could do over the course of an entire album. The answer arrives with Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, a deeper, darker, denser version of the bands already ambitious style. Dave Sitek and Tunde Adepimbe push their abilities as sculptors of sounds and words to new limits. Adepimbe continues to prove himself as a captivating voice, musically and lyrically. The opening track "The Wrong Way" is one of the best reflections of his strengths as a singer and writer, and of TV on the Radios overall growth. He explores his feelings about being a Black man and about Black culture at large, inwardly wavering between radical and placating thoughts and his feelings of obligation to be "Teachin folks the score/About patience, understanding, agape babe/And sweet sweet amour." Around him, he sees mindless materialism and misplaced anger and violence: "Hey, desperate youth! Oh bloodthirsty babes! Oh your guns are pointed the wrong way." On their own, the lyrics are eloquent enough to make a credible poem, but Adepimbes choir-like vocals and the flutes, throbbing fuzz bass, and martial beat that Sitek surrounds them with turn them into an even more impressive and impassioned song. That TV on the Radio can handle an issue like race so creatively and thoughtfully shouldnt come as a surprise, considering how organically the group incorporates elements of soul, jazz, spirituals, and doo wop into the mostly lily-white world of indie/experimental rock. Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes is a political album on other levels, from the psychedelic soul-tinged antiwar meditation "Bomb Yourself" to the more subtle politics of relationships that many of the other songs cover. This also makes sense, considering that TV on the Radio formed partially in response to the apocalyptic feeling in New York after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This brooding vibe comes to the forefront on songs like "Dont Love You," "King Eternal," and the beautifully bleak "Dreams," which makes the end of a relationship sound like urban blight. But Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes also leaves room for hope, and finds it in connections with other people. "Ambulance" is a creative look at love that sets lyrics like "I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast" to doo wop that invokes nostalgia and transcends it to sound utterly fresh. "Poppy" might be the only love song that rhymes "individuated" with "congratulations," though the tracks ecstatic guitars do most of the talking. "Staring at the Sun," the only song included on the EP and the album, seems almost simplistic compared to the rest of the albums songs, reflecting just how much TV on the Radios rewarding music has grown on Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes. ~ Heather Phares

〈ポスト・パンクとドゥワップのケミストリー〉なんて評されたブルックリンの隠し玉。スーサイド直系のループ・サウンドにソウルフルなヴォーカル。エンドレスで頭に住みつくその中毒性の高いサウンドを、アルト・サックスやフルート、フィードバック・ノイズが妖しく彩っていく。ヤー・ヤー・ヤーズのニック・ジナーがギターで参加しているが、それもほんの注釈に過ぎないほど、オリジナリティーに溢れた毒がたっぷり。
bounce (C)村尾 泰郎