TV on the Radio: Live at Amoeba Music

TV on the Radio
Live at Amoeba Music
Interscope
2007-03-27

Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio’s highlyregarded 2006 full-length, utilized enough smart studio technology that you can’t be sure what kind of live performance that band puts on. The new EP, Live at Amoeba Music, should put any worries to rest. Recorded at an in-store performance, the band’s stage sound on these four Cookie Mountain tracks puts more emphasis on the songs and performances, and neither comes up short. The band doesn’t exactly explode into some sort of other monster, but they’re tight and compelling, creating atmosphere as they rock out. “Wolf Like Me” provides the disc’s finest moment, primarily due to Tunde Adebimpe’s stretched vocals and the group’s ability to fill up the space. Following such a successful album, this EP makes perfect artistic sense (a new angle on the same songs) and even more commercial sense (something to sell that maintains interest between albums). The real question, then, is why did it get such limited release?

RATING 7 / 10