Consumer Guide Album

Television: Television [Capitol, 1992]
I prefer the more rocking, songful old Television, but it's a tribute to Tom Verlaine's conceptual restlessness and force of personality that in a world where alternative guitar means making noise or mixing and matching from the used bins, these four veterans have regrouped with a distinct new sonic identity. Droll, warm-hearted, sophisticated, cryptic, jazzy yet unjazzlike, they sound like nothing else--except, just a little, old Television, mainly because Verlaine has ignored the Lloyd Cole jokes and refused to alter his voiceprint. B+