For the first TH album produced by Brian Eno, opener "Thank You Sending Me An Angel" is a surprisingly conventional pop song, with some percussion touches similar to David Bowie. "With Our Love"**** combines more angular elements, that work surprisingly well with the melodic chorus. Another product of the new way of working may have been songs that sound thrown together, where Byrne can't even be bothered to write a melody that doesn't just double a frilly guitar riff, such as in "The Good Thing" and "Warning Sign". "The Girls Want To Be With The Girls"**** and "Found A Job"**** seem to work together better, have more interesting textures, the latter building from angular funk to a fantastic full band instrumental coda. The next three songs all feature similar angular melodies put together nicely enough, followed by their essential but overplayed cover of "Take Me To The River". The closer "The Big Country" begins innocuously enough, slide guitar and casual strumming, unleashes his inner arrogant New Yorker in the laziest, most awkward chorus on the album 'I wouldn't live there if you paid me, 'I couldn't live like that nosiree', offhandedly dismissing everything outside his stomping ground as the dispensable fly-over states. I choose to believe that this doesn't represent the view of all New Yorkers, while maybe he sits and contemplates why New Yorkers get a bad rap, but then I'm pretty naive.
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