David Byrne & Brian Eno   
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
(www.everythingthathappens.com)
** 1/2

It was 27 years ago that David Byrne and Brian Eno released their influential album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, and only now have they finally rejoined forces for a followup. The result, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, is sort of like My Life in the Lawns and Hedges. It’s a sort of suburban gospel album, full of major-key pop melodies, stacked, sterile harmonies, and lyrics that struggle, in a time of global uncertainty, to find comfort in images of domesticity. (“Home, with our bodies touching/Home, with the cameras watching/Home, where my world is breaking in two.”)
I’ve never quite bought Byrne when he’s in his populist, heartland-of-America, “City of Dreams” mode—to me, he’s much more convincing on a Talking Heads song like “The Big Country,” where he takes one look at the U.S. Midwest from the window of a plane and remarks, “I wouldn’t live there if you paid me to.”
There’s some uplifting stuff on Everything That Happens — especially the mid-album stretch of the title track, “Life Is Long,” and “The River” — but it lacks the earthiness (and the communal spirit) of true gospel. It’s earbud gospel, available only as an MP3.
PAUL MATWYCHUK

Hawksley Workman
Los Manlicious
(Universal)
*** 1/2

In the past, Sexy Hawskley has asked for a “Striptease,” then a “Smoke Baby,” and now he’s wondering “When You Gonna Flower?” — a sentiment which seems a touch innocent to go down as full-on sexy, but the rippin’ riff backing up Mr. Workman’s request makes it’s clear he’s not talking to a tulip. Initially released exclusively in Europe, Los Manlicious is Workman’s most accessible album since Lover/Fighter — it’s loud, noisy, and catchy. Not to say it lacks any of his eccentricities; even during the most straight-up lovelorn rock song, “Is This What You Call Love?”, he acknowledges “You need someone who knows you’re crazy / You need someone like me, baby.” “It’s a Drug” runs through Workman’s pop-opera range and “Fatty Wants to Dance” is a trashy Euro-disco track, which, with any luck, will become a disco hit.
He loses a few points for repeating some numbers from January’s Between the Beautifuls, but some new Workman is better than no new Workman at all.
KATHLEEN BELL 

Low Motion Disco
Keep It Slow
(Eskimo)
***

If it had come out 30 years ago, this “nü-cosmic” album from Low Motion Disco could have served as the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever — that is, if everyone in the movie were strung out on heroin.
Like other entries in this Subgenre Of The Week, Keep It Slow will be a fairly frustrating listen if you’re expecting to hear anything that would light up a dance floor. Just when things are getting going, they fade out — or even worse, they just keep that 80 BPM riff spiraling for what seems
like weeks, and with only two of the 13 tracks getting a serious chug on at some point, it gets pretty monotonous.
Yet, rather than dismiss the album for its lack of discosity, perhaps it would be better to examine this Swiss duo in the context of ambient bands like The Orb, Bent, and The KLF. In fact, with its gauzy layers of cinematic strings, twangy guitars, and old soul vocal samples, Keep It Slow would have made a nice 20-years-later followup for The KLF’s classic Chill Out disc. 
PROSPER PRODANIUK

THE VERVE
Forth
(EMI)
***
“Love Is Noise,” according to the leadoff single from The Verve’s new album Forth, and fans of these Manchester rockers are going to love the noise they find on it — not because it’s such a radical departure from their traditional sound, but precisely because it’s not.
You won’t find any classics like “Bitter Sweet Symphony” on this disc, but the instrumentals are like a comfy, warm blanket from yesteryear for those who grew up with Richard Ashcroft and the boys’ space-rock melodies.
If Forth is your first Verve experience, on the other hand, don’t worry. The tunes will grow on you. Not like a malignant tumor, but more like a crazy fungus with a life of its own that’s just too interesting to be burned off with liquid nitrogen.
Either way, music lovers are fortunate that the band managed to settle their differences and reunite for their fourth (Forth, get it? Soooo clever) album after breaking up in 1999.
You see, kids? Good things happen when you play nice.
ANDREW PAUL