Decoded And Used

St. Vincent and David Byrne “Weekends in the Dust”

My feelings about Love This Giant are pretty close to that of my friend Eric Harvey: Annie Clark and David Byrne are a smart match on paper, but their ideas don’t quite gel on this record. I find myself getting bored with Byrne’s songs and waiting impatiently for Clark to sing again, and I’m generally fine with late period Byrne. I could see myself warming to the album over time, but at this point in time listening to it in full can feel like a chore, which I really was not expecting. I do love portions of it, though, most especially “Weekends in the Dust.” The horns on the record can get a little heavy-handed and monochromatic, but they’re used really well here, rooting the neurotic scratch of the guitar to James Brown-style funk and add a more fluid melodic element to a piece that is otherwise stiff and reserved. The canned percussion makes sense here – it disconnects from the core funk, and indicates an emotional and intellectual rigidity. Clark’s vocals in this context remind me of Janet Jackson, who has always been good at playing it cool yet subtly soulful and dynamic in the context of rigid, mechanical funk.

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