Art-rockers show some new moves

By Dan DeLuca Inquirer Music Critic Dear Science, the third album by the Brooklyn rock quintet TV on the Radio, is the sound of a boldly experimental band making its most exciting music to date. It's what happens when a brazen art-rock band outdoes itself with a cohesive collection of songs that eye a world that appears to be falling apart with a watchful sense of dread, while making room for catchy choruses and unmistakable optimism. And while it doesn't dispense with the multilayered soundscapes of 2006's excellent and often-abrasive Return to Cookie Mountain, it adds a dash of funk to the noise-rock and deranged doo-wop, and comes out sounding like a dance record, or at least a dance record that an experimental art-rock band like TV on the Radio would make. "It's the closest thing to it," says Tunde Adebimpe, the band's... [read full story]