Television

Old bands reuniting are always a dicey endeavor.  I’m sure that nearly everyone has been burned by the dream reunion of that band you were a little too young to see at the time and have fetishized to the point that you even considered getting a tattoo of their logo somewhere on your person.  Then you see the show.  You see how they look like a bunch of balding dads.  You rejoice that you didn’t get that tattoo while simultaneously wondering if your favorite group had been replaced by team pinch hitting from the geriatrics ward.  This happens far too often as bands never seem to learn that reunions are undoubtedly a risky move that often fails to deliver.  Unless you’re talking about delivering some grimaces, which, in that case, some of these bands are hauling a truckload.  So what does this all say about this reunion disc.  Can it possibly live up to the accolades bestowed upon their landmark Marquee Moon?  Can it capture all their intensity of those early bootlegs?  No.  No to both.  But that doesn’t mean that this album, which too often gets sneered at, doesn’t have its attractive qualities.  It might be a bit sere and academic at times.  I’ll grant the complainers that much, but when considering how badly this could have gone we should just be thankful that we have one more Television album to add to their slim catalog.

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