Return to Cookie Mountain

Return to Cookie Mountain is the kind of album that doesn’t just ask for your attention—it demands it. Released first in July 2006 via 4AD and later in North America through Interscope and Touch and Go, TV on the Radio’s second studio outing is chaotic, commanding, and utterly compelling.

The Brooklyn five-piece build on the promise of Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, moving from smouldering art-rock to something more operatic and feral. Guitars squall, synths glitch, and vocals layer into something dense yet soulful. Cookie Mountain doesn’t follow the rules—it revels in its own unruliness.

“Wolf Like Me” is the obvious standout: a shape-shifting, pulse-raising anthem that growls with urgency. But the album’s power lies in its totality. “Province” features none other than David Bowie—his spectral voice haunting the chorus like a distant god. “Hours” flirts with fragility and momentum, with Kazu Makino adding a ghostly touch. There’s tension threaded throughout, but also catharsis—“Let the Devil In” and “Blues from Down Here” are primal exorcisms wrapped in melody.

This was the first record to feature keyboardist Gerard Smith, and his presence is felt in the album’s expanded sonic palette—dark, orchestral, occasionally apocalyptic. Yet, despite its density, the album never feels inaccessible. It’s soulful and strange, futuristic and raw, like a fever dream of post-9/11 New York filtered through gospel, noise rock, and avant-pop.

Critics rallied behind it for good reason: Return to Cookie Mountain topped Spin’s year-end list, landed in Pitchfork’s top two, and continues to be hailed as one of the great records of the 2000s. Eighteen years later, it still sounds like a prophecy being fulfilled.