Rating: NNN
After a month holed up in a Brooklyn basement studio, this Baltimore trio are resurfacing as a new band. Let’s call them TV Celebration on the Radio. Okay, maybe that’s not entirely fair, but TOTR guitarist David Andrew Sitek does leaves a large atmospheric production footprint on their sophomore effort, and he did call up pretty much his entire band to guest, including separate vocal parts for Kyp Malone, Jaleel Bunton and Tunde Adebimpe.
However, singer Katrina Ford does reassert Celebration’s identity with her unusual vocal range that’s hardly in danger of being overshadowed. She floats from an angelic coo to a Carole Pope snarl on the polyrhythmic Pressure. And her sheer unpredictability breathes life into art rock tracks like Pony and the Blonde Redhead-ish In This Land, both of which come dangerously close to drowning in a flood of Hammond organ.
