| Return to Cookie Mountain (with Bonus Tracks) | 
 enlarge | Artist: Tv On The Radio
Label: Interscope Records
Category: Music
List Price: $10.99
Buy New: $5.49
You Save: $5.50 (50%)
New (36) Used (19) from $4.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  57 reviews
Sales Rank: 739
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4
MPN: 000746602
UPC: 602517056176
EAN: 0602517056176
ASIN: B000H7JDZO
Release Date: September 12, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | I Was A Lover | | • | Hours | | • | Province | | • | Playhouses | | • | Wolf Like Me | | • | A Method | | • | Let The Devil In | | • | Dirty Whirl | | • | Blues From Down Here | | • | Tonight | | • | Wash The Day Away | | • | [ambient audio] | | • | Snakes and Martyrs | | • | Hours (El-P Remix) | | • | Things You Can Do |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Their second album and first for Interscope is almost wholly brilliant. Like Mogwai, Sigur Ros and a dozen others, TVOTR excels at making slowly-evolving tunes with vaguely anthemic choruses and lots of loud-soft dynamics. Unlike virtually any of those other bands, TV on the Radio mix a genuine and actual songwriting ability with their knack for finding sounds that appear to be "new." This record is crisper-sounding and incorporates more dance-based elements, but it's essentially a pop album. While the lack of the free web-released "Dry Drunk Emperor, a tribute to President Bush, is initially a bummer, the album percolates with enough pre-apocalyptic tension to satisfy anyone. In a Prince-pitched falsetto, the group sings "I was a lover/ Before this war," While throughout, the combination of melody and invention is always pitch-perfect (well, except on "Province" and "Let the Devil In," those songs sort of suck.) People of Earth: please make this band into total superstars and buy several copies of their album: one for the car, another for the office, etc. What we really need in our popular music is more weirdness, and more truth. --Mike McGonigal
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| Customer Reviews: Read 52 more reviews...
 A new breed of rock is perfected November 19, 2008
Of all the albums that topped the best of 2006 lists, TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain was perhaps the most challenging and simultaneously rewarding. I was recommended the album simply on a "you would like this" basis, and alternatively the persons brother told me I would hate it. Thus, I decided it was something I needed to hear, but I put it off. I regained interest by the end of the year when I started seeing the album all over the place, in places as innocuous and simple as Rolling Stone, The Onion, and Pitchfork Media (god forgive me). Although I hate giving any more bearing to any musical criticism juggernauts, but it topped a lot of big name lists. TV on the Radio appeared on the front of Spin Magazine due to Cookie Mountain being deemed the album of the year, for one thing, and Entertainment Weekly gobbled it up too (I think it might have also been their album of the year, but I'm not 100% sure). They were on David Letterman and Jimmie Kimmel. The delay in my interest only augmented the confusion that the album gave me on first listen, but I will attest that this is one of the best albums of 2006 and worthy of all the praise it gets.
What I didn't mention is that by the time I had acquired Return to Cookie Mountain, the album had gained almost mythical praise within my circle of music-loving acquaintances. They treated it as if it was some sort of nearly impassable wall that once traversed broke into paradise or something. Upon first listen, I was more than just skeptical, but turned off altogether. However, months later, when I had given the album numerous listens and understood it fully, I felt completely comfortable with what it was trying to say. The truth is that Return to Cookie Mountain is as much a puzzle as people say it is, and it is one of the most wildly different albums of pop to hit the mainstream in years. In a world where bands tend to get more and more disposable, TV on the Radio reaffirmed their place in the industry with this record and additionally justified all of their other music when they were more of an underground force. What I can say of this style will probably turn most people off at first, but don't be fooled. I haven't heard something this original in a long time, and this album sounds like little else you have heard. I can describe it as heavily beat oriented, a mix between hip-hop, alt rock and trip-hop, with distinctly haunting melodies. It's nothing short of a miracle, or perhaps an almost unbelievably show of skill, that TV on the Radio has gotten as far as it has, because their style is so unique and at times trying.
For that reason, it might be best to work backwards to truly put together all of the pieces. Although I Was A Lover might be one of the albums finest moments, the fact that it comes as a first track is downright discombobulating. The albums "hit" is Wolf Like Me, an upbeat, rocking, dark masterpiece that puts a lot of what the album has to say out on the table without quite digging in. But that doesn't make it any less amazing. This is the finest example of the groups dynamic lyrics. Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone team up for a wonderful, although not unique, rhythmic vocal style that breaths life into the record and acts as just as key of a role as any other instrument. A good chunk of the albums appeal is actually in the vocals and the lyrics, which are always well focused poetry. Especially breaking are the vocals in Blues From Down Here, "rue the pin/drop it in/let it wash away," sang in a singsong repetition over a completely destructive backdrop of music. This great line is not unique. The lyrics are just as impressive as the voices that sing them, and the description of a clone in I Was A Lover as well as the momentous Tonight are both highlights.
The continuous blossoming of this album is what makes it so worthwhile, and half the fun is letting it burrow into your head progressively. Every song on the album is key to the overall picture, which I think very few albums can vouch for. Even the weakest track, A Method, is sly and quite infectious rhythm. And what the big picture is could be explained as an urban odyssey of the soul, and an exploration into the psyche of the human mind. This may sound pretentious, but really who am I to judge what this album is really about with lyrics so cryptic and deep? And it never repeats itself either. Every song is singular. The final shoegaze rush of Wash The Day Away is just as shocking as the slamming railroad gospel Let The Devil in midway down the line, and as fun as filled with tension as Playhouses. Sometimes the album surfaces with something a little more positive like I Was A Lover and Providence, but the music is best at it's darkest, particularly Wolf Like Me, Blues From Down Here, and Hours.
I guess the biggest complaint I have about Return to Cookie Mountain is it is kind of hard to get through in one listen, but no doubt this is in my top five for last year. Once again, you can't let it slip through your fingers just because of what comes out on the first listen. I did that and it remained under my radar for months. Just try to keep an open mind and let the melodies and great vocals surface. This isn't easy, but in the end more than worth it.
 I see mucho potential October 17, 2008
I actually bought "Return From Cookie Mountain" about a year ago, and at the time I was not sure what to make of it.. I enjoyed the material, but I found the album to be generally lacking in emotional content. I sung along, but was also confounded by its mezzo-forte studio-phonic aesthetic. At the time, I intended to write a perfectly apathetic review, expressing my confusion about the fact that I did not like it that much, but I did not hate it either.
BUT ...usually.... this kind of internal dialogue indicates I have a great album that I just don't "get" yet. Why are many of my favorite albums ones that I had to come back to? Quite literally, just a few months ago, I came to understand "Tommy." Why, after not listening to it for several months, am I not listening to "Return to Cookie Mountain" every day?
A quandary then: If I listen to the new album, I will probably reconsider the statement that "Return to Cookie Mountain" tried to make. It seems, then, that the time is ripe to post a review; despite the fact that I think I still may not have plumbed its depths.
"Return to Cookie Mountain" presents itself as a Bizzaro-world collage that combines the irreverence of Fishbone with the acoustic sensibilities of David Bowie. Initially, it seemed like a wash of digitally atmospheric post-grunge, but it is within that atmosphere that "Return to Cookie Mountain" really shines. The sample becomes as important as the handclap. Fans of the Arcade Fire will most likely find something interesting here, but for some reason TV on the Radio feels less ostentatious. I'm really looking forward to checking out their new album.
THE LOWDOWN: As always, when I am curious about a group, I do a YouTube search. I think that this band is better live than they are on record. I'm not sure that "Return to Cookie Mountain" is TV on the Radio's finest moment, but it certainly points toward a compelling future for the group. They invert the rock-to-rap aesthetic that Faith No More established years ago by commenting on white American culture through an African-American lens.
Have a Review, Won't You? September 2, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Stop basing your purchases on written reviews or singles. Reviews are opinions of people different from you with biases different from your own. Singles are used to get close-minded peeps to buy the full album. Those close-minded peeps are often disappointed. Being open to cutting edge music doesn't mean you listen to "Return to Cookie Mountain" 12 times, say you "tried too like it" and sell it on CraigsList. It means you actually like it. Because independent of any review (I never heard any review, other that a local DJ telling an upset listener--who only liked "Wolf Like Me"-- to listen to the album again and if he didn't like it, he'd buy it from him) I listened to this album loud on headphones and thought it was the best new, complete album I'd listened to in a long time. They didn't copy someone else and this isn't experimental. This is real, listenable music if you like music and not revisiting memories of other artists.
Eh.... August 17, 2008
I bought this CD, as I sometimes do, because of one song I heard. In this case, Wolf Like Me. That song is a fine, fine tune with good synth sound and a nice peppy melody. The rest of the disc, as so often happens, was a bit of a let down. If you really, really liked Wolf Like Me and were hoping for more of the same, my suggestion is to just get the single.
Sophomore masterpiece with recording loops and guitar waves August 6, 2008
TV on the Radio's sophomore album is a brilliant mix of broken record loops, scatologic drums and waves of guitar noise.
Everything in the album recording is incredible. This album uniquely brings plenty of unconventional sounds, such as a broken horn loop followed by repetitive looping keyboard chords in the war song "I Was a Lover." Jaleel Bunton pounds a fast jungle-style drum beat in "Playhouses." So many songs sound like electronica jams, but they are filled with plenty of elaborate wall-of-sound guitar waves and choral "oohs."
TV on the Radio has become infamous with the multiple singers singing the same lyrics in a echoing vocal track. "Province" shows off their gorgeous voices (including David Bowie) in a beautiful crooning "Ooooh" in the opening, with soothing electronic keyboards in the background. However, the vocals reach an epic level when they reach the chorus, singing at the same time "Hold your hearts courageously as we walk into this dark place. The wave of guitar noise makes the song even more incredibly uplifting.
The wide variety of sounds, from a simple whistle to jagged, loose military drum beats, make this album a true gem. There's even a cool little "Dirtywhirl" song, which sounds like a warped circus organ song with a hip-hop beat. And by the time I heard the orchestra and the low buzzing guitars in the slow jam "Tonight," I was convinced that this was one of most beautiful albums I'd ever heard.
Anyone who wants to listen to the best new thing should check out TV on the Radio's album "Return to Cookie Mountain." It's probably one of the coolest albums in the indie rock genre.
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