The debut album by these two N.Y.C. girls sounds a lot like TV on
the Radio. That’s not much of a surprise, seeing that TVOTR’s Dave
Sitek produced it. There’s plenty of electronic buzzing and whirring
going on in the background of these nine songs, always distracting from
the action happening up front. Good thing, since Telepathe’s Melissa
Livaudais and Busy Gangnes really can’t sing, and there ain’t a whole
lot else keeping the record together. At least Sitek builds Dance
Mother on layers and layers of his trademark noise textures,
constructing glorious aural architecture out of the surroundings. A
couple of songs — “Chrome’s on It” and “Can’t Stand It”
— manage to wrestle part of the spotlight away from
Sitek’s machines, but it’s obvious who the real star is here.
— Gallucci
This article appears in Apr 15-21, 2009.
