Putting this right on front street: I only know a handful of Talking Heads songs (from the radio) and nothing of David Byrne's solo stuff except for one track off of the Future Soundtrack of America and his appearance on Space Ghost: Coast 2 Coast...which endeared me to him forever.
I am, however, a huge fan of St. Vincent, and I understand how singular and innovative and amazing Byrne is, and so I also understood how awesome it was that they were working on a project together.
And guess what? It turns out that project is pretty awesome.
The album started as bits and pieces sent back and forth between Annie Clark (St. Vincent) and Byrne; some music without vocals, some vocals without music. Over a period of about three years, they assembled Love This Giant, the instrumentation of which is built around an eight-piece brass band, with some drums, guitar and light programming thrown in to flesh out the mix. The album is split about fifty/fifty when it comes to St. Vincent and Byrne's contributions..
LTG opens strong and brash with "Who", an excellent way to usher in this experiment in horns and style and the collaboration of two amazing artists. The horns' interplay with the beat and vocalization is just perfect, and the accompanying music video is fantastic. One is required to boogie. After this, aside from the Clark helmed "Ice Age", the programming on which gets in the way and which never really goes anywhere but up in volume, the album stays well-crafted and vital, showing off the strong points of each artist beautifully.
The stand out tracks for me include "Weekend In The Dust" (which feels so sassy and snide and...I don't know...sunglasses in a dark room? Plus, the horns (as on the majority of the album) wind their way perfectly through the song), "Dinner For Two" (in which the overly paranoid lyrics are offset and made enjoyable by the horns' whimsy), "I Should Watch TV" (another Byrne-only contribution with some spectacular horn arrangement and his trademark rejection and ridicule of all things pop culture ("I used to think that I should watch TV/I used to think that it was good for me/wanted to know what folks were thinking/to understand the land I live in/and I would lose myself and it would set me free"). This one gets dark and epic right around the middle, then it's back to the jittering, driving electronics-laced horns), "Lazarus" (which starts off slow, but evolves into something grand thanks to some really excellent guitar, rife with Biblical language and references), "Lightning" (which has an almost dubby feel to it before it opens up into one of the best arrangements on this album), and "The One Who Broke Your Heart" (a manic, insane samba? Mambo? to which one must dance like a fiend so as to sweat so no one can see the tears rolling from one's eyes. Laughing and crying at the same time.).
This truly amazing album comes to a close with the soft and sweeping "Outside Of Space & Time", which, I think, could have used more St. Vincent, but, whatever, this whole project is about 93% solid gold and I have no right to complain.
Anyone remember Chris Cornell and Timbaland's bowle movement, Scream?
No?
Good.
Love This Giant is better.
Lots better.
Lots and lots and lots better.
In fact, this might just be my favorite album of 2012.
So buy it, listen to it, and then go see them in concert (details and dates and such at www.lovethisgiant.com), because, if it's half as good as the album, it's probably going to be something people talk about for years to come.
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