Perhaps it's a belated 15th anniversary celebration, but whatever the reason, I'm using the recent vinyl repressing of TV on the Radio's Dear Science as an opportunity to shout out an album that's long held a special place in my heart. "That place" being one of those records that no matter what, instantly transports you back to a precise time and location so intensely that you can close your eyes and practically smell the environment in which you previously consumed the music and it consumed you.

For me, that was September of 2008 in the first of what would eventually become three different apartments on Klostermannova ulice in Liberec, Czech Republic. Dear Science was the band's third LP but my introduction, and from the funky upbeat grooves to the emotional depth of the artsy ballads and everything in between, it was, and is, 11 tracks of cool swagger in TV on the Radio's genre-melding style all their own, and a portal to my mid 20s. I've since come to enjoy the rest of the Brooklynite's top-notch catalog, but Dear Science remains the peak, at least for me. With TV on the Radio's most current release now nearly ten years old, the only question is whether they'll ever even try to top it.