Talking Heads have always—from their seven-inch start, "Love→A Building On Fire," a chain of logical emotionalism in which that arrow implied all—reminded me of the Bronx High School Of Science, which is probably why I've approached them with a mixture of attraction and wariness. Give a guy like Byrne a box of tinker toys and he'll build you a metropolis with a working sewer system; then, with colored pencils, he'll chart the links between the chamber of commerce and the red light district. A dangerous boy. On Remain In Light he's like a whizkid stoned on a whiff of the Famous Flames, caught in his own beat, mumbling disconnected phrases … on the stairwell. Not since Love's Arthur Lee has mulatto-rock sounded like it was concocted on a bunsen burner….

The more "contemplative" tunes on Remain In Light lack the propulsive persuasiveness of [the] side-one rave-ups...