Another off the AMG trawl. I liked Talking Heads '77, but haven't heard this well-regarded one.
You're in for more or less what you'd expect if you know the Talking Heads at all, plenty of funk guitar, skittery beats and shouted, nervous lyrics, a bristling Gang of Fourey energy across the board. Over top of all the angular, busy instrumentation is a pretty expert set of vocal lines that are sometimes alienating/alienated and percussive, and other times simply soar over the chaos, a pattern particularly effective on Crosseyed and Painless and minor hit Once in a Lifetime.
Overall, its a curiously listenable album. The rhythms are complex, the playing stabby, but the songs make good use of repeated, rich melodic lines to give you something to grab onto as the scatter skitters by. Its almost dancable, at times, without giving up much adventurousness. Even the bizarre spoken word experiment Seen and Not Seen has a beauty to it that reminds me Fire Coming out of a Monkey's Head (of all things). Still haven't quite gotten my head around the song structures, which always bodes well for repeat listening. I suspect there are mysteries worth exploring in some of these crannies 4/5
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