a.k.a. DavidAnnie!!! Ugh…
[Video][Website]
[5.67]
Brad Shoup: It’s like burlesque music for sad people. I don’t think I hear St. Vincent behind Byrne, which surely is an opportunity lost. Alone, she uncorks a gorgeous Eurodisco melisma, a time away from the sardonic funk (which sounds a bit like Captain Beefheart in Royal Studios). A heavy stepper for sure.
[8]
Jonathan Bogart: Byrne’s standard paranoiac-critical line is softened a bit by Clark’s open-vein self-portraiture, but the stiff-legged cadenzas of the ensemble are looking for a funk rhythm in order to get full-on surrealist.
[7]
Alfred Soto: As he proved on 2008’s Eno collaboration, Byrne’s recovered his flair for horn arrangements. The guitar fills are distorted just enough to keep older fans happy but off-kilter (it’s like offering Dad a tequila shot). But he has little to say other than amiability about sharing his legend with the likes of St. Vincent, who’s just another bit of “exotic” detail. So maybe he hasn’t learned after all.
[4]
Anthony Easton: Wasn’t convinced of St Vincent, until now; she just needs to be a backup singer for the indie grandfathers when they try to do washed out delta blues. Can’t wait to see her EP with Bowie or a maxi-cassette with Lou Reed.
[7]
Josh Langhoff: Who? Me, apparently, since I heard “rock critic Tom Moon chat[ting] with NPR’s Melissa Block” about this very album yesterday while I did domestic things — not as I drank a cup of coffee and folded laundry (that’ll be today), but drank a glass of wine and made cornbread. (Whoooooo’ll make some bitchin’ cornbread?) But even as a middle class college grad who enjoys constellations, hallelujahs, and comfortable domesticity, I can’t imagine who needs more of this stiff non-sequitized “funk” organizing itself into an oratorio about high-minded things.
[3]
Mallory O’Donnell: It’s nice enough, but who really needs nice enough art-rock right now?
[5]