Ghosts Of Past Laid To Rest With Modern Mix Of Reflection

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday January 10, 2009

Bernard Zuel

DAVID BYRNE AND BRIAN ENO

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (Inertia)

It's been more than a quarter of a century since David Byrne and Brian Eno last worked together on a trio of astonishing Talking Heads albums and their separate groundbreaking sampling-electro-funk 1981 album, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.

So this album inevitably carries expectations of somehow re-creating that original magic and ability to reshape contemporary music.

Those expectations would be unfair and, as it turns out, inaccurate. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is not, nor is it meant to be, something revolutionary.

The songs - plain-spoken lyrics and vocal melodies by Byrne and music from Eno - are in the main unashamedly attractive. You can hear some gentle grooves and occasionally a bit of light funk.

There are a few moves that can't be anything but country. There are some rather seductive beds of studio-created sound washes and a secular, or maybe just white-boy, church effect.

Except for Poor Boy - which is the most prickly number, the one you might dance to and the closest thing to Bush Of Ghosts - it is primarily a blend of electronic- and gospel-influenced pop of almost benign reflection, intersecting with a keenly felt scepticism that all the darkness really is on the edge of town.

The combination makes for an album that, like the painting of a tree-ringed suburban house on the cover, suggests solidity, warmth and respite from burdens.

But like the inside of any such suburban house, as you explore the album the reality is more complicated.

In The River the tone is upbeat as Byrne says in a singsong melody: "I'm standing on the stage, I'm working in a restaurant, I make a decent wage, And I will sing into the microphone."

But the intimation of flood, neglect and oppression nags away. In Wanted For Life, it's never entirely clear who or what is before the court or indeed whether truth is being told.

"Maybe that's the way it goes," Byrne sings.

In Poor Boy, which begins with the unadorned but nonetheless menacing image of "a truck parked this morning outside the grocery store", Byrne mixes positive slogans of the Bush era ("Live fast die happy, Don't let your panties show, I trust market forces, It's the only song I know") with their opposites ("I'm living in a country where I'm never free, I'm writing down the names of all the things I see").

It's a smart album from two smart men. It's a pleasure too.

© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home