Perhaps you aren't aware of it, but deep in the trenches of music criticism, there's a war being fought. With only a month and a half left in 2008, nerds around the world will soon be forced to choose an Album of the Year, and there are two major contenders: Portishead's Third, an utterly bleak comeback album that makes the band's earlier work look like High School Musical, and TV on the Radio's Dear Science, a step forward for a band of Gloomy Gusses who suddenly seem almost optimistic. In the interest of helping music critics and music-critic-wannabes, here's a helpful graph comparing different aspects of the two albums.

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