All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Tiny Mix Tapes

Return To Cookie Mountain is one for the ages.

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100

The Onion (A.V. Club)

TV On The Radio previously seemed content to roam the open horizon; here, it's intent on exploring the far side. The journey is, once again, enthralling.

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100

Alternative Press

Yes, the journey is often challenging, but that's what makes it unforgettable. [Dec 2006, p.190]

Filter

As an artistic achievement, it ranks incredibly high on the list of great postmodern statements. Here is a piece of music (but oh so much more) that proves that something new can be done, and it can be entirely engaging. [#21, p.92]

ShakingThrough.net

Return to Cookie Mountain validates the promise of TV on the Radio, an outfit that heretofore had displayed more potential than actual returns.

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MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)

Never rousing and too often glum, the album is carried by its intelligence, integrity and terrible beauty. [Feb/Mar 2007]

Entertainment Weekly

The savvier arrangements, brimming with unsettling sound effects, put Cookie Mountain several steps ahead of its fine 2004 predecessor, Desperate Youth, Bloody Thirsty Babes.

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Stylus Magazine

TV on the Radio have crafted a work of immense, cataclysmic, almost overwhelming power and righteous fire.

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Pitchfork

Maybe that's why this album has such an incredible pull: It doesn't make an atmosphere so much as a space to spend time in, and Adebimpe doesn't become a narrator so much as a witness.

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Drowned In Sound

Return To Cookie Mountain is a party soundtrack for a fucked-up generation and an opus that inhabits the midpoint between the scarcely conjoining circles of eclecticism and enjoyability whilst maintaining consistency throughout.

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Prefix Magazine

Return to Cookie Mountain makes Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes look almost silly by comparison.

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Neumu.net

Whichever way you look at it, as avant-pop or cubist soul, Return to Cookie Mountain remains an intoxicating, intriguing but accessible album.

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New Musical Express

Odd, addictive, unsettling and beautiful. [8 Jul 2006, p.41]

Slant Magazine

TV On The Radio do more than keep pace with their Shortlist Prize-winning Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes; they enhance nearly every aspect of their debut, creating an album that is uniquely theirs in the modern scene.

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Rolling Stone

Might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedelic and ambitious [album] of the year. [21 Sep 2006, p.84]

The New York Times

It’s more experimental yet catchier, more introspective yet more assertive, by turns gloomier and funnier, and above all richer in both sound and implication. “Return to Cookie Mountain” is simply one of this year’s best albums.

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NOW Magazine

A densely tangled masterpiece that floods and floors by straddling swaggering grooves and boggling cacophony.

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Amazon.com

Almost wholly brilliant.

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Under The Radar

Return to Cookie Mountain sweats off most of the band’s more head-scratching impulses and leaves a manic, depressive, exhilarating album of experimental pop. [#15]

The Phoenix

Experimental without sacrificing anything in terms of hooks or melody, passionate yet never overbearing, and clever without giving in to the urge to indulge, it places TV on the Radio on a plane with no peers.

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cokemachineglow

The music beneath Cookie Mountain is an earthquake of nearly generation-defining proportions.

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Uncut

Return To Cookie Mountain sees TV solidifying their more ethereal tendencies into denser compositions. [Aug 2006, p.100]

Billboard

While TVOTR now record for just another major label, their music is more distinctive than ever.

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Q Magazine

An album full of playful daring. [Aug 2006, p.115]

musicOMH.com

While far from immaculate, Cookie Mountain is the logical progression from Desperate Youth, with its conception fruit enough for those who appreciate musical innovation.

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All Music Guide

At times, Return to Cookie Mountain threatens to become more impressive than likeable -- a complaint that could also arguably be leveled against Desperate Youth as well -- but fortunately, TV on the Radio reconnects with, and builds on, the intimacy and purity that made Young Liars so striking.

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Dot Music

Take the time to squeeze inside, and you'll discover a startling, significant, endlessly inspiring album.

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Blender

On their lush major-label debut, the haunting Peter Gabriel-esque yawlps of singer Tunde Adebimpbe are punctuated by singer-guitarist Kyp Malone, whose raspy falsetto provides a sense of deadpan panic. [Jul 2006, p.103]

Observer Music Monthly

A warmer, more linear record than their debut... Spellbinding, frustrating, wonderful.

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Spin

Sitek's layered sonics have grown more immense... and almost none of these songs charts a predictable course. [Jun 2006, p.81]

Urb

Give up now, guys, because it rarely gets better than this. [Jun 2006, p.113]

Mojo

A triumph of psychedelic melody, drone and eerie groove. [Jul 2006, p.104]

Paste Magazine

TV on the Radio is that rare band able to simultaneously identify the pitfalls of modern life and offer a spiritual alternative... That the band does so with music that's at once readily accessible and refreshingly unique is simply the crowning touch. [Jun/Jul 2006, p.118]

The Guardian

Return to Cookie Mountain is largely a delight - an experimental album with a pop heart that avoids self-indulgence.

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Almost Cool

Dense and substantive, Return To Cookie Mountain is a nice head-trip to take.

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PopMatters

It may sound strange and unwieldy on first (or second or third) exposure, but those who stick with it will be rewarded with an album of surpassing intricacy, filled with an abundance of musical nooks and crannies, the likes of which reward sustained attention and concentrated effort on the part of the listener.

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Vibe

These are antiheroic, anti-anthemic, antiwar gems of abstraction, full of consistently strange and exotic charms. [Oct 2006, p.146]

Dusted Magazine

There's a wider range of styles and sounds here, from dramatic shoegazer epics to the closest they've ever gotten to straight-ahead rock. Not everything gels solidly, and there are some awkward moments, but no real stumbles.

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Playlouder

Fascinatingly dense, soulful and utterly divine.

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Trouser Press

As music for airports, the album hums along like a tension-age sedative, but if it was meant to be a grand artistic statement by an acclaimed band with a distinctive vision, it's pretty much static.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 198 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

James B. gave it a10:
Great music isn't always easy to digest. This is an 11-course meal of gristle on which I happily dine.

David gave it an8:
Loved Wolf Like Me and I Was a Lover. And now getting into the album. This is great music - but don't expect to "get it" at first listen - if you want instant pleasure then look elsewhere. Dirtywhirl - what a great song. I'll give it an 8 now but I reckon it will improve with age like a fine wine.

Ben B. gave it a2:
I don't get it. I don't think I want to understand it. Downloaded it listened to it deleted it. Another Jesus Jones or something of that nature.

Jezz gave it a9:
Brilliant. Beautiful, dark and dense music. Let the Devil In is the only letdown on a great album.

Alex P gave it a10:
This is a stupendous fantasy for the ears. It's gorgeous rough and soaring. One of the best albums of the decade

Tony G. gave it a4:
I listened to this album and I thought was awful. It seemed as though it tried too hard to be non-commercial and not a single song stood out as interesting.

Max M gave it a10:
Trust me. I know music. This isn't some overrated crap that a lot of critics pour their hearts into. This is my favorite album from 2004-2007.

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Return To Cookie Mountain

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