Tunde Adebimpe’s debut solo album, Thee Black Boltz on Sub Pop, opens with the poetic spoken word title track, setting the scene. What follows is a mix of lo-fi indie rock, electro dance-ready beats, industrial banging, and 80s synth pop as Adebimpe sings about loss, love, and an uncertain future over varied backgrounds.
Not too far removed from his main act’s sound, Thee Black Botz delivers for fans of TV on the Radio, as the experimental nature and sound collages all still fit into a pop song formula. The excellent “Magnetic” is a banging stand-out single as the warbling keys, tight drums, and buzzing synths/guitars propel the catchy number into exciting indie rock territory. Album closer “Streetlight Nuevo” is also a throwback to the ’00s with pumping twitchy beats working with layers of synths and pianos around horoscope-infused lyrical work from Adebimpe.
That intersection between anxious electro-dance music and vibrating rock is crisscrossed multiple times throughout the record as all the tunes play in these sonic environments to various degrees. The feedback-tinged groove of “Pinstack” brings in falsetto vocals from Tunde as well as bells and odd sounds, while the ’80s synths and choppy beats of “The Most” go a step further, delivering a literal car crash sound effect, bluntly hammering home the point during the breakup song.
That sense of overdoing it a bit too much also shows up in “Ate The Moon,” which uses nervous beats and synths to form industrial dance music but goes on for too long, mixing multiple ideas. Much better is “Drop,” which forms around sparse skittering beats and gorgeous clean guitar as Adebimpe sings and whistles to convey his emotions. There is no masking the sentiment in “ILY,” which is as direct a love song as there can be, while “God Knows” is the more interesting effort about loving someone whom you clearly shouldn’t, while weepy steel guitars and an acoustic breakdown alter the sonic structure.
Adebimpe does not forget about the dance floor. The pulsing beats rev up ominously as the revolution hits the club scene on “Blue,” while “Somebody New” goes all in on forgetting your troubles and sweating out the pain via neon-colored synths and new wave beats. This combo of fidgety indie rock and uneasy dance tracks works well on Thee Black Boltz, Tunde Adebimpe’s successful solo debut.
