Bears and Bullets Top Ten Albums of the Decade - Dear Science

#9: Dear Science - TV On The Radio

Dear Science took TV On The Radio to place that struck people familiar at first, but was platooned beneath an expansive exterior. Many people look at 2006's awe-inspiring Return to Cookie Mountain as the band's crowning achievement for the decade, citing its biting experimentalist nature, tight production and white-knuckle ideals. All well and good, of course, as Return to Cookie Mountain is the direct link to Dear Science. The elements (as with the band's 2004 release Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes) are all apparent -- fuzzy bass-lines, political touches, pounding percussion, electro-fusion blends and funky interludes -- but for the first time the band achievement, without much question, an accessible pop presence that shadows over the band's previous work.

The albums opening tracks, "Halfway Home," "Crying" and "Dancing Choose" are as big and boisterous as the Brooklyn band has ever sounded. Dave Sitek's pristine production and minimal progressions are fuel behind Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone's wrenching and reeling harmonies. Still, behind the glorious sounds, Adebimpe and Malone have found a profound comfort zone. For all of Return to Cookie Mountain's glory, several of the tracks are admittingly polarizing and rigid. Many of the songs surpassed six minutes a piece, and much of those six minutes were, as experimenting goes, a tad jolty. With Dear Science the band rid of most of those awkward fringes and created a body of work that still borders on primal and beautiful.

But it's the album's most fragile moments, "Family Tree" and "Love Dog," that echo stronger than the bands previous work. Never has the band felt or sounded more solemn than in "Family Tree," accompanied by a string section and a dark, dissonant bleakness that plays like a star fading out on the horizon. In "Love Dog," Adebimpe's tale of loneliness and desperation, sounds almost heroic, but never lets the listener go. The rest of album, in many ways, has the same feeling.

TV On The Radio - Love Dog (Live at Le Live De La Sema)

#10: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga - Spoon