BY ZACHARY HERRMANN

In the last, oh, let's say, eight years or so, there's been a lot of doom ‘n' gloom going around America, which naturally, has seeped into the conscious of our more artistically-minded musical acts. As a band that came up during the last six of those years, TV On The Radio has been pegged at the head of the pack - and rightfully so. The Brooklyn group probes the art of death, decay and dissonance as well as any band this side of Radiohead.    

But beneath the piercing drone of Kyp Malone and David Sitek's guitars, caught between Tunde Adebimpe's swelling synthesizer loops and lover's croon, there's a much wider spectrum of emotions at play. Friday may have capped off one of the worst weeks (if not the worst) in stock market history, but when the opening chords of "Young Liars" buzzed throughout Philadelphia's Electric Factory, Adebimpe twirled his hips.

Maybe it was a death dance, hopeless and submitting, or it could have been celebratory. Either way, he danced, jumped, raised his hands and sang, "My mast ain't so sturdy/ My head is at half/ I'm searching the clouds for a storm."

For a predominantly college-aged audience (there were families too), the words could have been a dismal reminder of the greater uncertainties looming ahead, looking bleaker all the time. And Adebimpe did make passing reference to the economic fallout later in the night ("How's everyone doing out there... OK...it's the most you can hope for these days") and Malone to the election.

Armed with a smile and a hearty laugh, though, Adebimpe never felt like the harbinger of darkness, nor did he want to be. Fueled by the overt sexual energy rushing through TVOTR's latest release - the oft great, occasionally sluggish  Dear Science  - the charismatic lead singer led a thrashing, beautiful set that ended far too quickly.

Removed from the studio, TVOTR's shadowy compositions feel fierce and raw, showing the influence of the likes of My Bloody Valentine or Sonic Youth far more transparently than on album.  Dear Science  lead off track "Halfway Home" loses a good deal of its grandeur, while "Wolf Like Me" - off of the stellar 2006 masterpiece,  Return From Cookie Mountain  - and most other tracks snarled and kicked in relatively barebones treatments.

Largely skirting the slower numbers in its catalogue - with the exception of the first encore, "Love Dog" - TVOTR operates as lean as a sextet possible could; well-tuned but still up to challenge itself. On "Shout Me Out", the band shuffled between abrasive and melodic, letting each face complement the other before closing the set with the ear-drum bleeding beats of "Satellite".

Wind-chimes dangling from the neck of his yellow and maroon-striped Telecaster, Sitek strummed wildly over the strings - his hand a gyrating blur - producing TVOTR's signature scrawl. Often, Sitek and Malone's echoing guitars filled in on the wider, brassier songs, though TVOTR's touring saxophonist/clarinetist carried the load well as the lone woodwind. As the less visible rhythm section, drummer Jaleel Bunton and keyboardist/bassist Gerard Smith kept the production from tearing off into reverberating chaos.

As is often the case at the Electric Factory, striking a balanced sound mix proved an uphill battle, but even the early, foggier moments never cut too far into the band's presence. Adebimpe, a spirited and generous performer, locked the crowd in from the second he stepped onto the stage, digital camera in hand (he snapped pictures of the photographers in the photo pit at the show's start, then took shots of the audience at the finale). Even on the elevated stage, the lead singer looked more like a guy in for a good time than a brooding, computer-age poet.

Whether he chose to accept it or not, there was a pretty dedicated (but not nearly sold out) constituency ready to follow Adebimpe's lead into the abyss, hand-clapping, singing and bouncing all the way.

We could do a lot worse.

Set list:

Young Liars

The Wrong Way

Dancing Choose

Golden Age

Wolf Like Me

Halfway Home

Province

Dreams

Blues From Down Here

Shout Me Out

Satellite

Encore:

Love Dog

A Method

Staring At The Sun

[Photos Credit: Zachary Herrmann]