When Ryan Adams was in town earlier this month, he stopped by Indy CD and Vinyl a provided a self-evaluative review of his own discography. In his own handwriting, here it is.

Right up front, this is a fantastic album, definitely one of my favorite albums of the year. The songs are strong, the melodies are great, the playing is inventive and varied, and the lyrics are suggestive without being direct, all hallmarks of goodness for any rock band. What puts TV On The Radio over the top, however, is that, despite the occasional musical "borrowings," they sound like no one else, combining sensations of humor and dread, and depression and hope, if not always in equal measure, then at least ever-present in almost every song. Opener "Halfway Home" jumps out of the gate with a Ramones-like chant, but the song is far from Ramones territory. One of the groups "signature sounds," producer David Sitek's driving, shoegaze-like guitars, are placed faintly in the background throughout this and other tunes, providing a feeling of sustained tension that is somehow combined with minor-key tenderness. Over this guitar approach, Jaleel Bunton's drums come in with a great off-beat rhythm on snares and toms (a specialty of his), providing both a danciness and unsettling jumpiness to the proceedings. Then come the melody lines, some half-spoken, some beautifully sung, always varying slightly from verse to verse. All of this is topped off with a great melodic chorus that suggests uneasiness in the same breath that the Ramones-like chant suggests humor and relief. Indeed, the lyrics touch on "efforts to allay your dread," and this aptly summarizes the feel that is present throughout. "Crying" follows, expanding on these motifs, with funky drumming, subtle keyboards laying in the background, percolating funk bass, and a slinky, Chic-like guitar line, all while Kip Malone sings lines like, "Laugh, in the face of death under masthead". "Dancing Choose" brings in honking sax to the mix, while "Stork & Owl" sees the addition of strings, both plucked and bowed, providing the backdrop for a wonderfully atmospheric and less beat-driven meditation on love. "Golden Age" then keeps the strings, but puts them to use over the group's off-kilter beats and bubbling guitars that underpin another message of not-quite optimism, as when they sing of a "golden age," "Here it comes like a natural disaster, ah, blowing up like a ghetto blaster". Even more disquieting is "Family Tree," an ostensible love song that opens with the lines "Anda my love/Wake up to your window," but then goes on to proclaim "And in the shadow of the gallows of your family tree/There's a hundred hearts or three/Pumping blood to the roots of evil/To keep them young". Not your typical loving reflections, to say the least, but the music, until the end just a wonderfully melodic vocal and delayed piano, sustains a feeling of gentleness throughout [and the phrase "gallows of your family tree" is brilliant in my book]. "Red Dress" is next, with a middle-period Talking Heads approach on guitar and Fela Kuti-like drums, keys, and horns (the latter provided by Afro-beat greats Antibalas) providing one of the albums best dance grooves. But the dancing is less joyful when you hear lines like, "But I'm scared to death that I'm living a life not worth dying for," and "[I]t's a stone cold shame how they get you tame/how they get me tame," all within lyrics with numerous allusions to slavery. After three more excellent songs, Dear Science concludes with an unusually aggressive ode to the hopefully redemptive powers of love and sex, backed with a straight-ahead rock propulsion that never relents. Taken as a whole (which is how this work should be taken, rather than shuffling it with other songs on one's Ipod), TV On The Radio is a band to be reckoned with, to be taken seriously but also with humor, to be admired for their originality within what has too often become a rather tired, unoriginal genre (that being rock and roll), and to listen to when one feels both hopeful and uneasy, optimistic yet wondering whether such optimism is warranted, all of which feels perfectly right in today's culture. In essence, they are a supremely talented band made for our times.