Television’s second album is no Marquee Moon — and that’s something to be thankful for. Because when you shrug off the burden of their debut’s overwhelming greatness and the adoration that goes with it, you don’t have to listen for the same things, and what sophomore LP Adventure actually offers is a more streamlined and subtler version of the still-present elements that made the band so distinct. The tricky thing about Adventure is that it’s fairly back-loaded if you’re looking for big-statement sounds; aside from the punchy post-Nam-fatigued war-scoffing “Foxhole,” its first half indulges a more to-the-point and pared-down sense of hooky melodicism that makes both the joy and the angst in Tom Verlaine’s lyrics feel deceptively ordinary. (Not ordinary as in mundane, but as in I’ve been there.) But the Verlaine/Richard Lloyd guitar interplay starts to really unfurl in its back half, along with a few unexpected detours — the yearning organ on “Carried Away” that picks up where the melancholy piano on “Guiding Light” left off, the weeping theremin that pierces the oblivion drive of “The Fire,” the brusque teardown of their previous album’s titular riff and the harsher insistence of Verlaine’s soloing that makes “Ain’t That Nothin’” a power pop dark horse. And by the time the freewheeling sprawl of the Marquee Moon sound finally starts to reassert itself on closer “The Dream’s Dream,” it’s already sunk in that Verlaine’s heightened-emotional-state yelp and his enigmatic yet evocative lyrics were still more than enough to build a powerfully malleable signature sound around — one that could easily bridge the stark, serrated bleakness of Tonight’s the Night Neil Young and the hooky pop-as-poetry of “Because the Night” Patti Smith. Sadly, tensions between Verlaine and Lloyd would break up the band before the year was out, leaving Adventure as a fascinating departure with no clear destination — but it’s far enough from its origin point to make the voyage worth taking anyways.

– Nate Patrin