At start of the glorious polyglot carnival that is Remain in Light, David Byrne chirps, “I’m a tumbler.” Talking Heads’ fourth album seems to move similarly, so eager and accelerative that, at times, all it can do is ride its own momentum. It’s the distillation of four New York art punks’ open-hearted curiosity for other cultures, grounded in quiet, binding anxiety. Recorded at Nassau’s Compass Point Studios, it’s the least chill thing to ever come from a vacation to the Bahamas, and we are luckier for it.

Remain in Light took the Talking Heads from punk mecca CBGB to dance haven Paradise Garage, with the band trading in their lean, agitated guitars for danceable polyrhythmic jams. Inspired by Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, the quartet and producer Brian Eno stuffed in brass, keys, double bass, and King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew over loping funk grooves. Atop the instrumental travelogue is Byrne at his impressionistic lyrical peak, pulling from such bleak prompts as the Watergate hearings, the autopilot of American consumerism, and terrorist bombings to drawl a sharp portrait of a country adrift at the dawn of the Me Decade. Remain in Light is the once-in-a-generation synthesis of global ideas and neighborly idealism, a pop mouthpiece for every wanderer who travels far and wide to understand their home better. –Stacey Anderson / Pitchfork.com