MUSIC PREVIEW: TV on the Radio is a hit

There’s been so much acclaim for  TV on the Radio that further endorsement feels at best like reiteration, and at worst, doctrinaire.

 But  the Brooklyn fivesome has outdone itself  with  ``Dear Science,'' and should find an audience packed to the gills at both Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence  on Saturday, and at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre on Monday.

 There are bands that are difficult to classify, and there are ensembles like TV on the Radio, best described as experimental  indie rock shot through with electronics and other styles encompassing post-punk, jazz, noise rock, industrial, jangly soul and jagged funk, and even doo-wop and a cappella.

 ``Dear Science'' is a worthy companion to ``Cookie Mountain,'' and if anything’s changed  it’s that the new songs are more catchy and triumphant than the noise-filled abysses of last time. The music is still exhilarating,  but with plenty of gale force guitar.

  Vocalist Tunde Adebimpe, guitarist/keyboardist David Andrew Sitek, bassist Gerard Smith, drummer Jaleel Bunton and vocalist/guitarist Kyp Malone don’t indulge too many questions about ``process.'' They’ve wavered little in their original mission, and it’s only the scope  that   has grown; all five members still live and operate in  Brooklyn, continue to produce and collaborate with other bands, and make music without  parameters.

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 ``I don’t see much relation from one record to the next other than the time and experience which accrues between records,'' Smith   wrote in an e-mail. ``I don’t think there’s much acknowledgment of, say, the opinions of critics or how our work might be received by the public. The whole recording process is so overwhelming, (and) it’s hard to imagine being concerned with anything other than trying to get all the work done in the studio.''

 All they ask, it seems, is to not be put in a box – and to make sure its core stays the same.   When TV on the Radio made the leap from Touch & Go Records to Interscope  for ``Cookie Mountain,'' it  insisted that label execs  not be involved in  creative decisions.

 ``I suppose it’s every artist’s responsibility to maintain autonomy from their label, patron, what have you,'' Smith said. ``I don’t imagine any successful relationship between artist and label can be about creative input. Each party has (its) own part to play.''

TV ON THE RADIO With The Dirtbombs. At Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, Providence, 7 p.m., Saturday ($22-$30, www.lupos.com), and at the Wilbur Theatre, Boston, 7:30 p.m., Monday ($25).