David Byrne’s New Album Features Music From HBO’s ‘Big Love’

"Rather than being overtly melodic, the tunes aim to establish mood or create tension without resorting to melodrama."

Big Love: Hymnal

"Even if you don’t follow Big Love, the HBO series about a polygamous family for which David Byrne wrote these mostly instrumental beauties, you can enjoy the music."

David Byrne: Big Love: Hymnal

"As it rolls and accelerates unflinchingly without any effort on anyone's part, seizing some and being seized by others, one thing this man doesn't do is watch time burn by while sitting alongside it idly."

Big Love: Hymnal, Now Out

"With such an extensive amount of themes to choose from, Byrne was able to include a number of additional never-before-heard tracks on the album. 'It’s not a pop record by any stretch,' notes Byrne, 'but I’m proud of it.'”

Album Reviews

"Many of Byrne's short but articulated songs grapple with the mysterious, confounding nature of faith and the suspicion that underlies the Henrickson household at the center of the series."

Big Love: Hymnal

"Byrne allows himself to wander across a wide musical palette as he evokes the sense of an America that is familiar yet slightly sinister."

Album Reviews: Big Love: Hymnal

"It's unmistakably American: many pieces have the flavour of old pioneer hymns that have since accrued the fuller arrangements reflecting the society's progress towards gentility – a discreetly pompous palette combining brass band horns, palm court orchestra strings, and the vibes, ululations and repetitive manner of 20th-century minimalism."

Something for the Weekend: Big Love: Hymnal

"In fact, there are no boundaries to Byrne’s work."

Review: Big Love: Hymnal

"But HBO loves its irony, so who knows what people saw while they heard this music?"

Music Reviews: Big Love: Hymnal

"David Byrne is unable to tell a simplified story. While everyone else imagines heaven as a one-dimensional paradise, the Talking Heads frontman envisions an impossible place frozen in a perfect, repeating kiss."

Review: Big Love: Hymnal

"The percussion section is often in the background, if present at all, but this adds to its vivid power when making its way to the forefront at selected moments; such as is in Byrne’s The Breastplate of Righteousness."

Album Reviews: David Byrne

"These sets demonstrate that there’s no limit to Byrne’s inventiveness or willingness to experiment with any and all genres and styles."