If you by any chance read lots of indie music sites, you're probably sick of hearing about TV on the Radio by now. They've assumed the status of being a much more indie-accessible version of The Strokes or The White Stripes, a band that's poised to save rock and roll, but without having the dreaded "mainstream" connections of the aforementioned bands. All this hype just built off a single 5-track EP. They must be good.

Well, they are good, but not as good as the rumours might suggest. If "Young Liars" suffers from one thing, it's a lack of focus. All of the five tracks on here are good songs in their own right, but there is absolutely no flow or symmetry on this EP. You could mix up all the songs, and it would still be just as interesting as it is. If you chopped out one of the songs, the others wouldn't suffer.

Satellite kicks off with a frantic percussion beat and fuzzy bassline, and slowly builds with a slightly echoed vocal line which conveys just enough anxious energy to supplement the song structure nicely. Later in the song, shimmering, distorted guitars are brought deep into the mix, giving the skeleton of the song enough meat to avoid becoming boring. Staring at the Sun starts off with a couple of soothing "ooohs", before some sampled television noise in a foreign language is faded in, and a heavily processed melody line kicks in, and some strange atonal lyrics begin. Later on in the song, things like drum machines give a sort of nervous energy to the song.

Blind does suffer from being a bit too long. The by now conventional bass-heavy rhythm leads into the song, but at least this time it's slowed down, and supplemented with a gently tinkling piano. Young Liars features an organ line and lots more Beach Boys-style "oooh"s scattered all over the place. The final track, Mr Grieves sounds like a bizarre fusion of black soul music and post-punk style gothic rock.

There is nothing wrong with the individual songs on this record, even Blind, by far and away the weakest song present, is layered and developed well enough to be compelling. Most of these songs would work well on compilations and soundtracks, because they do not rely on each other to set up their tone. It's just that put together, they fail to really add up to more than the sum of their parts. This is a worthy effort, to be sure, but it's not quite good enough to save rock and roll.

If you by any chance read lots of indie music sites, you're probably sick of hearing about TV on the Radio by now. They've assumed the status of being a much more indie-accessible version of The Strokes or The White Stripes, a band that's poised to save rock and roll, but without having the dreaded "mainstream" connections of the aforementioned bands. All this hype just built off a single 5-track EP. They must be good.

Well, they are good, but not as good as the rumours might suggest. If "Young Liars" suffers from one thing, it's a lack of focus. All of the five tracks on here are good songs in their own right, but there is absolutely no flow or symmetry on this EP. You could mix up all the songs, and it would still be just as interesting as it is. If you chopped out one of the songs, the others wouldn't suffer.

Satellite kicks off with a frantic percussion beat and fuzzy bassline, and slowly builds with a slightly echoed vocal line which conveys just enough anxious energy to supplement the song structure nicely. Later in the song, shimmering, distorted guitars are brought deep into the mix, giving the skeleton of the song enough meat to avoid becoming boring. Staring at the Sun starts off with a couple of soothing "ooohs", before some sampled television noise in a foreign language is faded in, and a heavily processed melody line kicks in, and some strange atonal lyrics begin. Later on in the song, things like drum machines give a sort of nervous energy to the song.

Blind does suffer from being a bit too long. The by now conventional bass-heavy rhythm leads into the song, but at least this time it's slowed down, and supplemented with a gently tinkling piano. Young Liars features an organ line and lots more Beach Boys-style "oooh"s scattered all over the place. The final track, Mr Grieves sounds like a bizarre fusion of black soul music and post-punk style gothic rock.

There is nothing wrong with the individual songs on this record, even Blind, by far and away the weakest song present, is layered and developed well enough to be compelling. Most of these songs would work well on compilations and soundtracks, because they do not rely on each other to set up their tone. It's just that put together, they fail to really add up to more than the sum of their parts. This is a worthy effort, to be sure, but it's not quite good enough to save rock and roll.