Love This Giant by David Byrne & St. Vincent

Love This Giant by David Byrne & St. Vincent

Love This Giant,” the collaboration between an experimental artist of last generation, David Byrne of the Talking Heads, and experimental artist at the height of her career, Annie Clark of St. Vincent, is an extremely interesting idea.

            The first song, “Who”, begins with a catchy horn intro that immediately hooks. This dance provoking number weaves the vocals of Clark and Byrne together into a compelling duet, alternating lines in a way that compliments both of them.

            Prominent horns as well as the rest of an 8 piece brass section most prominently constitute the background and basis of the album, and their notes are bouncy and catchy in a memorable way. Guitars are much less prominent by comparison (perhaps a surprise, given that Byrne and Clark are both primarily guitarists).

            Clark and Byrne alternate vocals throughout the album, singing their quirky lyrics back and forth; Clark's voice sounds warm amidst the brass, while Byrne hasn't lost any of his energy or enthusiasm with age. While Byrne provides the impetus and drive behind the tracks, it is Clark's voice that really fleshes out the emotional appeal of each song, perhaps leading listeners wondering why she wasn't a little more prominently featured. When she sings “It's such a shame?/To see you this way, freezing it out/Your own little ice age” in “Ice Age” her voice is thick with regret and ache, and when the song picks up her voice soars high above the filled out musical landscape of horn and guitar.

            Some of the horn arrangements are a bit simplistic, and can feel repetitive and tiring after a while; nowhere is this more apparent that during the majority of “The Forest Awakes”, although this song redeems itself somewhat with a memorable and original ending as a precocious guitar joins the horns in changing it up.

            The final song, “Outside of Space and Time” closes out the album as a wistful look at love. “Where we will meet tonight/Spiraling out of sight/Outside of space and time,” Byrne sings, sounding both lost and enlightened at the same time.

            “Love This Giant”'s weaknesses are fairly obvious; there isn't a lot of variety in the musical styles, and, as to be expected on this kind of collaboration, where Byrne and Clark are mixed together so thoroughly, even at its best and most emotional moments it fails to be truly personal. Despite this, “Love This Giant” succeeds at what it attempts: to entertain, surely, but also to encourage the listener to look at life through a slightly different lens.

7.0/10

Reviewed by Kent Vashaw