Photo courtesy of 4AD.David Byrne and St. Vincent — whose real name is Annie Clark — both have fairly guitar-centric pasts, but they’ve exchanged their six-strings for a much less conventional palette. Nearly the entire “Love this Giant” record is dominated by a blend of horns, saxophones and electronic beats. It’s a crisp, smart blend that resists easy classification without getting too obtuse. Anyone wanting to pigeonhole the collaboration as another “indie rock” release is going to have to stretch quite a bit to do so, as it is easy to envision these two luminaries taking pleasure in such a claim.
The problem lies in what exactly Clark and Byrne do with these scores, or rather what they fail to do. While the duo has crafted the perfect cocktail of past and present, they struggle to pair it with engaging and cohesive compositions. Segments of songs lie disconnected from one another without adequate connective tissue, leaving gaps for the listener to try to fill. On “Dinner for Two,” multiple shifts alter the melody’s tone and nuance so many times it’s hard to know where Byrne is steering.
The album opener and lead single, “Who,” is the perfect distillation of all the strengths and weaknesses of “Love This Giant.” Playful and celebratory saxophones gallop and tumble around a crunchy drumbeat, setting the stage for Byrne to enter with his trademark double-vocal approach. It’s nearly as jittery as anything he did with Talking Heads, and that sense of nervy-whimsy tends to dominate the album’s vocal imprint. In spite of her considerable talent, St. Vincent winds up being pretty much a nonfactor in the overall sound.
Fans of St. Vincent who fondly remember the splattered guitar breaks of “The Strangers” or “Marrow” won’t find any similar sources of pleasure here; axes still pop in from time to time, but they almost always hang back to color between the lines. That wouldn’t be an issue for the songstress if she brought a compelling voice to tussle with Byrne’s, but this rarely happens. St. Vincent is primarily relegated to providing gauzy scenery that both undermines the tension, like in “Who," and clutters up artfully disjointed motifs, found in their song, “Lazarus”. Her leads are just as disappointing, given their tendency to wash out under the tide of horns as heard in the track “Lightning."
Still, two tracks manage to escape these considerable pitfalls. “The Forest Awakes” features a cyclical pulse akin to rolling a rubber tire — one that feeds easily into the naturalist imagery and simple vocal croon. This sort of escape to the wild is even stronger on “I Am an Ape," which is easily the best track on the album. Byrne hunkers down for an expedition through the jungle flanked by a pitter-patter of electronic drums and trumpet calls, maintaining a crisp vocal cool despite the suspense. It’s striking and satisfying in a way few of the surrounding tunes come close to approaching.
“Love This Giant” is an instrumental album in search of freedom from human overlords. It is wildly inventive in its orchestration and crisply produced — completely let down by the lack of distinctive songwriting. Let's hope Byrne and St. Vincent show improvement the next time around.
Reach the reporter at tjgreene@asu.edu
