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Dear Science, the third album from the Brooklyn-based art rock band TV on the Radio, is a vivid, angry, sensual soundtrack to the haunted life.
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Q MagazineNo two tracks are the same, none could be anyone else. This is one irresistible party: the joy Adebimpe was looking for is right here. A great, great record. [Oct 2008, p.154]
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TV on the Radio have finally made an album that someone other than hyper-analytical music critics might actually enjoy.
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Dear Science, has all the euphoria and cosmic soul searching hinted at but not delivered on by lesser chancers such as MGMT.
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The thing about the indie-rock life is that even its depressives, not just mere realists like these guys, have a pretty good time.
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Career-defining stuff.
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Yes, this is shit-hot thrilling music. But it's also brainy and ambivalent, and more engaging for it.
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On Dear Science, TVOTR finds a more traditional consistency, transmuting that dirty experimentalism into a lush cleanliness that eases--rather than hurls--its songs into the art-making ether.
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TV on the Radio may still--and always--make capital-A art, but they've found something universal, even joyful, in the noise.
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There’s a sense of purpose here, of direction and clarity, shafts of accessibility that relegate the din to the background without ever compromising the potentially hostile underbelly of the band’s core sound.
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Throughout Dear Science, TV on the Radio--which includes the rhythm section of bassist Gerard Smith and drummer Jaleel Bunton--flesh out Adebimpe's and Malone's ruminations with relentlessly inventive arrangements that make even familiar sentiments seem fresh.
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Dear Science is another highlight from a band whose career has essentially been an extended one.
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'Dancing Choose's' title is pointed enough that the song almost doesn't need to prove that dancing on your troubles is powerfully therapeutic as thoroughly as it does, but that's just another example of this album's rare balance between craft and passion.
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For all its musical precedents (first and foremost, this is an auspicious, brilliantly-executed dance album), what makes Dear Science so hefty and relevant is its beating heart.
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Dear Science is a stirring addition to their ever proliferating catalog; a stalwart continuation of the band’s hooking groove, and easily one of the best releases of the year.
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One of the best albums of 2008, Dear Science, is an album you can ramble on about for nearly 600 words before you realize you forgot to mention 'Golden Age,' arguably the best song on the album.
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Overall, Science expands the band’s already-vast palette that continues to defy and recontextualize any definition of a “rock” band.
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Whether Dear Science stands the test of time like classic records must is impossible to predict right now, but, at this moment in time, it's sounding like one of the albums of the year, and its makers' latest, greatest masterpiece.
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It's that sprawling sense of humanity that makes Dear Science such a rich listen.
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Dear Science finds the band pushing still further, using its big beats and graffiti textures in service of its most accessible songs to date.
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Dear Science is all the more satisfying for providing a sense that the next leap will be just as rewarding.
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The most engaging film characters have likeable qualities that conflict with something that’s inherently hard to stomach. Brooklyn’s TV on the Radio masterfully employ this tension in Dear Science,--apparently their major breakthrough album.
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TV On The Radio sound wise beyond their years, youthful stars whose mouthpiece contorts itself into funk shapes and whups without sounding like an out-of-depth chancer.
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The whole record is about the band skillfully weaving in and out of dramatically different textures and arrangements; each song plays with several musical ideas, not just one or two.
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Deep Science should enhance TVOTR's reputation as one of the finest, forward-thinking bands around, along with fellow Brooklyn acts Animal Collective and Liars.
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It's a real thrill to find TV on the Radio pushing through the portal into the ethereal space-rock paradise that they always seemed destined to inhabit.
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Dear Science is a brilliant balancing act between pop aspiration and music-geek aesthetics.
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All are very good indeed.
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MojoMalone excels himself with the brassy pop of 'Lover's Day' and 'Golden Age.' [Oct 2008, p.112]
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Dear Science cuts through genres like a laser through a music encyclopaedia, making strange connections, but always with pop clarity as the ultimate aim. As ever, Sitek’s production shines.
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They've toned down the distorted-guitar squall and ash gray skronk that blanketed their first two albums, the rhythms are friskier, more vigorous; the hooks accessible and easier to love. [Oct 2008, p.77]
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Although it’s not a major departure, Dear Science, does have a more open, brighter sound than "Return to Cookie Mountain."
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It stands as a sometimes-confusing document of a particular time and place in the story of this constantly evolving art project.
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Dave Sitek’s production is the magnetic north of this musical universe, and with it the band is never lost. They would be well to sound more so; to get lost, rather than cluck with pleasure at how well they know themselves.
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If you're a fan, there's certainly stuff you'll enjoy here, but if you're looking for them to take another step forward, this might not suffice.
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It's all well and good, but we've mostly heard it before.
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On third full-length Dear Science, the Brooklynites have turned a corner, safe in the knowledge they can pen a good pop song. Not everything works, of course.
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FilterDear Science has its moments, but these moments means less and weigh more. Pretty cool? Well, it's pretty alright. [Fall 2008, p.91]
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Under The RadarDear Science, spends its 50 minutes in flux between several worlds, none of them particularly memorable. [Fall 2008, p.78]
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They haven’t exactly lost their sense of intrigue, it’s just that on Dear Science it all sounds a lot less intriguing.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 252 out of 285
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Mixed: 19 out of 285
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Negative: 14 out of 285
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exe.May 14, 2009
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BriCOct 15, 2008
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AndyB.Oct 10, 2008