By turns aggressive and elusive, abrasive and romantic, Return to Cookie Mountain is an anthem for uneasy times. From the heartsick horn sample that kicks off “I Was a Lover” to “Wash the Day”’s sitars, car bombs, and diamond-encrusted guns, this Brooklyn quintet conjures a bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape, then surveys the sonic ruins. The stunning, propulsive “Wolf Like Me” makes vampires look like sissies, while “Dirtywhirl” conflates hurricanes, the Hindu goddess Durga, and “the flesh of a girl.” Tunde Adebimpe’s steely tenor has been compared to Peter Gabriel’s, but it’s more expressive than that. On tracks like the hard-driving dirge “Blues from Down Here,” he sounds like nothing so much as the late Arthur Lee from Love: supple, menacing, and a trifle unhinged. With Kyp Malone’s eerie falsetto harmonies ringing over the top, the effect is part futuristic doo-wop, part dystopian Beach Boys. Buzzing post-punk guitars and ambient drone, live drums and stuttering processed beats: the arrangements are layered and dense, and the musical influences come fast and furious. By all rights, the whole thing should fly apart, but instead Return to Cookie Mountain achieves a counterpoint as savage as the Mad-Max world it surveys. There’s no one else making music quite like this.

Tracklisting

1. I Was A Lover (4:21)
2. Hours (3:55)
3. Province (4:37)
4. Playhouses (5:12)
5. Wolf Like Me (4:39)
6. A Method (4:26)
7. Let The Devil In (4:25)
8. Dirtywhirl (4:15)
9. Blues From Down Here (5:17)
10. Tonight (6:52)
11. Wash The Day (8:07)

Apple Music

Videos

TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me (Official Video)

More Videos

• TV On The Radio - Province
• I Was A Lover
• Tonight
• A Method
• Untitled
• Let The Devil In

Release Images

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Release Information