Going by ‘Magnetic’, the lead single from Tunde Adebimpe’s debut solo album, the speed and chaos of the world isn’t enough to drag the TV on the Radio singer down; on the contrary, he’s supercharged by it. While it made for a thundering introduction to Adebimpe’s solo career, that’s not exactly how Thee Black Boltz came to fruition. The album’s release is now helpfully timed to TV on the Radio’s reunion campaign, but its origins were, in fact, tied to what the band’s “mini-implosion” in 2019. Around that time, Adebimpe was toying with drum machines and a few synths, and he preserves some of those rudimentary, demo-like qualities on the new record, which he fleshed out with producer and multi-instrumentalist Wilder Zoby. The occasionally sparse nature of the album is complemented by taut, thematically cohesive, and often cinematic songwriting from Adebimpe, who showcases both the tender and manic sides of his vocal style. The electropunk of ‘Magnetic’ gives way to a varied electropop palette, a bunch of midtempo tunes and even an acoustic ode to Adebimpe’s late sister. It’s not the blaze of light that kicks the record into gear, but these flickering sparks keep it shining on, up against the void.
1. Thee Black Boltz
The opening title track, a short poem slightly muffled by tape hiss, introduces the idea that sparks of inspiration can – and most often do – strike in the midst of darkness; even when that darkness seems like the very thing that should obscure them. “Say we start in the stars/ Descend to the mountain/ Walk down and through the hillside towns/ Settle our love and hate affairs,” he intones. “Walk down through the edge of the wood to the edge of the brook/ Sit and lament some happyysad run.” Change, he concludes rather vaguely, is “all looking at the stars.” Then he hears a tune and launches us right into it.
2. Magnetic
The beginning of Thee Black Boltz isn’t so much “show, don’t tell” as “tell a little, show a lot.” To describe ‘Magnetic’ as aptly titled would be somewhat of an understatement; the album’s lead single is more hectic than purely electric, with Adebimpe’s blazing performance – though the synths are also, to borrow the singer’s verbiage in the actual chorus, “dope” – doing the heavy lifting. Even when running on nervous energy, he can’t help but get a little cerebral, contextualizing it with the line, “I was thinking about the human race in the age of tenderness and rage.” He meets the apocalyptic moment not just with stock resilience, but a kind of invincibility: “Out of the skillet/ Doing loops in the fire/ What they gonna do/ With a lightning rider?” What else can you do but dance along?
3. Ate the Moon
The album veers into fantastical, infectiously campy territory with ‘Ate the Moon’, which puts Adebimpe’s skills as a performer front and center. Even as he warns of chaos, there’s a cheekiness to the track that’s foregrounded by Wilder Zoby’s choppy synths and culminates in a punchline of an outro. Internally, Adebimpe careens between “sad extremes,” which speaks more broadly to the tensions of the record.
4. Pinstack
On the surface, ‘Pinstack’ is a more straightforward slice of glam-rock swagger, but its unexpected shifts and, again, Adebimpe’s voice keep it from feeling trite. He allows himself to get a little looser: “Cause me?” he sings, pointing in the mirror with self-effacing silliness, “I’m tryna get unstuck.” Before distorted guitars drive the song home, his layered vocals are more than capable of carrying the momentum.
5. Drop
Beatboxing isn’t as much of an odd fit for the melancholy introspection of ‘Drop’ as you’d think; it’s not showy but kind of lonely, as if dusting up the bones of the song. It returns to the album’s soulful thesis, manifesting it: “My heart beats a spark/ Of revival/ Jumps so high/ And right into the sky.” But it needs support, and in the second half, Adebimpe calls out for someone to help cast an “extraordinary spell.” Maybe we’ll feel it when we can sing it together, he seems to say.
6. ILY
There’s rarely as much power in simplicity as there is in three words, and on ‘ILY’, Adebimpe sings them over and over, even trying different vocalizations, as if in hopes of reaching a higher plane of existence. ‘ILY’ is an elegy for his younger sister Jumoke, whom he describes as “a beacon in the dark” – far more than just a spark. Mason Sacks’ plaintive acoustic guitar anchors Adebimpe’s cosmic yearning, making it, too, sound fairly simple: “Yeah, we could glow bright/ As the sky when the Sun/ Hits the sea.”
7. The Most
‘The Most’ isn’t just Thee Black Boltz’s one blatant misstep, but feels strangely misplaced coming out of ‘ILY’, not to mention tonally bemusing. While the album generally does a good job of balancing stuttering electropop with Adebimpe’s theatrical ambitions, on ‘The Most’ those elements are starkly mismatched – though at points the lyrics are so clunky I’m not sure a different arrangement would be flattering. “If there’s a lesson to be learned/ About the nature of desire/ Sometime the loving lingers on/ Even when the lover is a liar.” Even if you’ve learned the same lesson, I doubt it’s felt like this; whether or not it’s trying to undercut its sincerity, the feeling’s not quite coming through.
8. God Knows
Feeding off presumably the same experience of betrayal as ‘The Most’, ‘God Knows’ is much more effective at evoking its central conflict. At once biting, conflicted, and mournful, the midtempo cut strikes a more delicate balance, with touches of pedal steel evoking real grief over the chug of guitars and threatening piano notes. Lyrically, it’s caught between vindictiveness and vulnerability; one moment sneering about “you pushing every button/ But you saved the self-destruct one/ Just for you,” then “moving through this loneliness/ With a smile/ And a tear on my face.” Still, the spell seems to be working.
9. Blue
On ‘Blue’, Adebimpe zooms back out – literally: “Took to the hills to gain a better point of view.” The view he relays, over a foreboding, industrial soundscape, is of a town where “wickedness spreads like a disease.” As drum machines swap out for dynamic percussion, impending doom not only intensifies but takes on a kind of organic quality: “At the edge of the mountain/ Earth’s talking retribution.”
10. Somebody New
Now here’s a song that owns all its synthetic gloss, channelling “heavenly vibration,” in all its nonsensical glory, through the album’s most exuberant synths and catchiest hook. There’s not a shred of irony here, just uncomplicated pop, even if it still leaves Adebimpe wondering: “Is there nothing in the world that we can do about this?” Usually, his singing is feeling out those questions; this time, though, it’s also a defiant response.
11. Streetlight Nuevo
A piece of sparkly, gliding electronica, ‘Streetlight Nuevo’ brings the album full circle by describing the tune heard at its very beginning: “It was wild as the moon.” For a while, the song keeps itself at a slight distance, until Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s strings make it sound like an ascent, the light inching closer. “Just give me that sound/ I’m only tryna see someone,” Adebimpe pleads; perhaps referring to a love he’s hanging on to, a stranger in the audience, or, given the previous song, the new person he’d like to cast himself as. For the singer of an established, newly resurrected, and constantly shapeshifting outfit, carving out new paths is just part of the job. Thee Black Boltz digs under the skin just enough to feel like not just another new beginning, but a revelation.
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