Album Review: David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

The main flaw with Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, the first collaboration between Brian Eno and David Byrne in 27 years, is its lack of a strong, controlling aesthetic. Rewind the clock almost three decades, back when Byrne and Eno were working on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in L.A., and you’ll find that the opposite is true: the pair began working on the project with the intention of creating something faux-cultural, music based on a time and place that was completely made up. They eventually scaled back the idea, settling on the marriage of African pop with found vocals (radio talk show hosts, Lebanese mountain singers, exorcists, et al) in what became a stunning and innovative pastiche of rhythm, electronics, and concept.

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, by comparison, doesn’t have nearly the same coherence as its predecessor (albeit a distant one). According to Byrne, the album was supposed to be an “electronic gospel,” a label that faintly applies to the pseudo-religious lyrics (“Big Nurse”; “The Lighthouse”) but has no bearing stylistically. A more believable explanation comes from Eno, who wrote the majority of the music for the album. He approached Byrne a few years back, expressed dissatisfaction with a set of songs he had been working on for “up to 8 years,” and eventually asked Byrne to write lyrics and sing over the music. In other words, the collaborative starting point of Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is “salvage Eno’s botched tunes” -- a far cry from the ambitious raison d’etre of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

And the results are appropriately disappointing. Aside from a few up-tempo gems, a set of glossy, lackluster ballads dominate the album, evoking a mood that fluctuates between bland and tart. Case in point, “Home,” the first song on the album, features some excellent electronic atmospherics from Eno, but feels obtuse with the addition of an acoustic guitar and ultimately calls the Flaming Lips (circa Yoshimi) to mind. Other songs, like “Everything that Happens,” occasionally suffer by way of David Byrne’s vocal delivery, a somewhat ironic coincidence given how My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was pieced together. The only major exception to the rule is “Strange Overtones,” a mid-album dance number that features a killer Byrne melody and a bass riff that oozes in minimalist funk.

In short, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is uninspired: the songs are disparate, the pace is slow, and Byrne voice sometimes sticks out like a sore thumb. If you haven’t heard it already, seek out My Life in the Bush of Ghosts instead and cross your fingers that the Byrne/Eno collaborations don’t stop here.