TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe has a rasp in the higher reaches of his singing voice that's gotten him compared to Peter Gabriel more than once. "Blind" is the only TVOTR track that bears any real resemblance to any of Gabriel's, though (it ponders like "Don't Give Up"). When Adebimpe sings the phrase "My love is a sucker bet," you realize it's in a serene, intellectual emotionalism where the two singers find parity. But where Gabriel had Kate Bush begging him to keep on keepin' on, "Blind" comes off like a relationship death knell. Adebimpe trails off in a woozy hum of a lyric--"If you save yourself/I'll save you all the time"--sung with a tactile dejection, a reservation, and more as an utterance than an appeal.

At its inception, the band's lineup was comprised of Adebimpe and producer David Sitek, but TVOTR has grown into a five-piece. The band still exercises instrumental restraint, though, streamlining their rather broody rock guitars and understated drum machine into a wispy pillow for Adebimpe's redemptive, casually soulful voice.

Adebimpe is the centerpiece of the band's Young Liars EP (Touch and Go), perhaps because the songs' genesis was in his voice. He says, "I'm a big fan of seeing the sketch underneath the painting. I wrote 'Staring at the Sun' on a four-track, humming all the music and singing the lyrics; it was just a matter of me going over to Dave's and saying, This is how it goes, and he did all the instrumentation. In the past, I've had huge problems with indecision as far as starting a song goes.'"

A cover comes more readily, perhaps, as on TVOTR's a cappella version of the Pixies' "Mr. Grieves." Adebimpe doesn't reinvent the song; he whittles it down to its roots, harmonizing with five or six of his own vocal tracks, sounding like a hymnal of lament, with no hint of sardonic Black Francis. He seems to sing the line "Hope everything is all right" with a smile--redemption in an EP where "love is a liability."