Music

The Brooklyn-based and polymorphically perverse quintet’s debut was their ‘Young Liars’ EP (which featured
Nick Zinner and Brian Chase of Yeah Yeah Yeahs), but it was their LP of 2004, ‘Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes’ which saw them bust out of the underground, despite compromising none of their interest in mardy atmospherics, dense electronic texturing and description-averse tuneage.

In general terms, ‘ReturnTo Cookie Mountain’ is far less complex in its layering, but no less substantial for that, while the vocals –  whether interplay between Malone and Tunde Adebimpe or massed choral effects –  now help guide the tunes, rather than struggle to navigate a path through TVOTR’s dark, sonic maze. The result is a more accessible record, although anyone listening to ‘Let The Devil In’ (Arcade Fire tackle Afro hi-life) or epic, effects-heavy closer ‘Wash The Day’ in isolation would likely disagree. Even fan David Bowie’s guest spot (on ‘Province’) can’t leaven this band’s near-spiritual strangeness. For which we must all give thanks.