1 Comment Written by The Crew on September 23, 2008 – 10:22 pm

18 years since their last collaboration (windows 95 doesn’t count!), the most prolific and influential pop-producer of the past 30+ years and the vocalist from one of the most revered art-rock bands ever come together for an album of pleasant pop.

To start this off I might as well admit that as far as I’m concerned this is another Eno masterpiece. It’s catchy, strange at times and brings back everything from Eno’s pop era that the music geeks worldwide love so much. Whilst the album isn’t as groundbreaking or as esoteric as My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the production and arrangements are pretty much pop perfection and Byrne hasn’t recorded a bad vocal performance in his life.

Sure, you could argue that ‘these beats are 20 years old‘ but the point is useless. Byrne and Eno are masters of pop and their collective strength lies in being able to pull amazing musical performances out of anything at all. To be quite honest, some of the tracks can be a bit boring or miss the mark in parts (the opening vocals in wanted for life) but when the album hits a high point (a choir of Byrnes singing the chorus of the title track) it’s like God existed and patted you on the back. Then gave you 50 bucks. And then told you you’ve always been his favorite.

You’d think that after all of Eno’s projects seemingly straight after one another the guy should be burnt out (a prize pack of absolute junk + a WMSG cd to the worst ‘burnt-out/Byrne’ joke!) but it seems that Eno is  one of those few true musical geniuses in the world. And although it might pain some people (me) that right now Eno is inflating both his bank account and Bono’s ego by working on U2’s next multi-platinum piece of sentimental, quasi-religious garbage, I can rest at night knowing that every few years we get something great like this.

note: seriously, the title track is amazing, listen to it in the mini-player above!

Edited by adrian