★★★★★ Tracks:
Thank You for Sending Me an Angel
With Our Love
The Good Thing
Artists Only
Take Me to the River
More Songs About Buildings and Food is easily my favorite ‘Heads record. The group is still in its rock’n’roll phase, but their sound is greatly enhanced with Brian Eno at the helm for the first time in what would prove to be a long, fruitful relationship between band and producer. Eno, still very early in his musical career, and riding the success in helping to shape the sounds of Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy,” had a keen ear for the direction in which the ‘Heads were attempting to take their music. On Buildings and Food he doesn’t want to fiddle much with the sound but rather tinker with the way it comes to your speakers. He tightens up their studio sessions and therefore the quality of the songs themselves, he gives the guitars a bit of a mechanical feel, and allows the spastic, nervous energy the band creates to seep through the recording. The results are fantastic; 11 of the weirdest, grooviest tracks to come out of the 70’s. “Thank You For Sending Me an Angel” is the perfect opener, but “With Our Love” is the ‘Heads’s mission statement; a computerized, rinky-dink guitar charges ahead while David Byrne neurotically sings of the strange complexities of relationships between male and female.
The album culminates in what might be the best track of the album, a cover of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River.” The Talking Heads slow it down, strip it of its brass section, add a little synth, and Byrne adds his eccentricities to perfection. Alongside "Remain in Light" and "Burning Down the House," "Take Me to the River" would end up being one of the most recognizable songs the 'Heads ever produced.
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