TV on the Radio
Return To Cookie Mountain
Release Date: Sep 12, 2006
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Interscope / 4AD
Music Critic Score
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Album Review: Return To Cookie Mountain by TV on the Radio
Excellent, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
The New York Times recently reported a new trend sweeping American bars and British pubs. Drinking establishments that have installed "infinite jukeboxes" - those hooked up to a seemingly limitless database of music - have found them hijacked by Wire-reading fans of "difficult" music. They load them with coins and program them to play hour after hour of unlistenable noise, in what one such hijacker labelled both an "attempt at provocation and civil disobedience" and a "hilarious practice".
Based on rating 8/10
As passionate as ever, but with a little more polish, TV on the Radio give their unapologetically ambitious sound room to breathe with a lush, expansive production on Return to Cookie Mountain. The sonic depth throughout the album is a sharp contrast with the density of their first full-length, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, which was so jam-packed with sounds and ideas that it was nearly suffocated by them. However, Return to Cookie Mountain is hardly slick or dumbed down for mass consumption.
Opinion: Very Good
Over the past year, we all got accustomed to seeing TV on the Radio adorning the covers of nearly every music magazine on the racks, and even a number of non-music covers. Their ubiquity might have worn thin if it weren't that, for once, the flavor of the day actually had flavor. Which is to say that, unexpectedly, the media had latched onto a group that deserved the accolades and attention.