New - TV On The Radio: Happy Idiot

It's been three years since TV On The Radio last released an album - with the group taking a much-needed pause after the death of bassist Gerard Smith (second from the right, above) from lung cancer.

"We've been through a lot of stuff in the past few years that could have stopped the band cold," said singer Tunde Adebimpe in a statement earlier this year. "But I'm glad we got it together and took stock of the unique connection we have between each other because the [new] record is 1,000%, without a doubt, the best thing we've ever done."

On the evidence presented here, he could be right. Powered by a nimble guitar riff and an energetic new-wave beat, Happy Idiot is a hymn to ignoring your problems in the hope they'll go away. "I'm a happy idiot waving at cars," sings co-vocalist Kyp Malone.

Of course, bottling up your feelings can only lead to trouble - and I suspect the new album, Seeds, will delve into the consequences... For now, though, enjoy three minutes of big dumb fun.

TV On The Radio - Happy Idiot

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TV On The Radio make video without puppies

New York indie rock ninjas TV On The Radio have been making great music since 2001. Like many people, however, I only stumbled across them with the release of their fourth, and best, LP Dear Science a couple of years ago.

Critics generally put Dear Science's success down to two things: Dave Sitek's generous, multi-layered production, and a serious dose of "da fonk". In other words, TV On The Radio had made indie music you could dance to. In yet more other words, they'd stumbled across the holy grail of not-crap guitar bands: Decent songs.

Then Dave Sitek went off to sprinkle his magic dandruff over the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' It's Blitz! (amazing) and released a solo album under the name Maximum Balloon (doubly amazing). There were rumours the band had split up... rumours which they did little to dispel. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a new song popped up.

It's called Will Do and it precedes a full album, Nine Types of Light, due in April. (Fact: Those nine types are Visible Light, Candle Light, Coke Lite, Deee-Lite, Have you got a light? Potato Blight, Starlight, It'll Be All-light On The Night, and Po-lite-ness never killed anyone, you know.)

The video for Will Do features the band strapping on virtual reality headsets to play virtual reality instruments. It is all very impressive, in a "didn't we stop talking about virtual reality in 1992?" kind of way, but they have stupidly missed an obvious promotional opportunity: Virtual reality puppies.

THIS IS GOOD

THIS IS BETTER

Am I wrong or am I wrong? I am not wrong.

TV On The Radio - Will Do

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