Tales to question and ponder.

Who Is The Sky holds 12 tracks, averaging about three minutes each. Like how the album cover visually shows a full pinwheel, there’s an entire rotation of instruments throughout including everything from saxophones to synthesizers, marimba to viola. In each song, Byrne shares a story, or concept, bringing out morals and questions for the listener to ponder.

The album starts with Byrne cheerily counting in a few guitars, vocals soon joining them with violin and viola following suit. The lyrics breach the expanse of the human experience, starting off with the title “Everybody laughs” continuing onto “Everybody cries / Everybody lives and everybody dies.” The song is upbeat, although it is somber for a moment, bringing it back to just a kickdrum, flute and violin for “Everyone you love in every kind of way” as Byrne delves into the moments that encompass a lifespan. It breaks off into an instrumental break led by the marimba. The break is interspersed with two more choruses, but the marimba’s tune doesn’t pause until the cut off at the end of the song.

Track five, “What Is the Reason for It?” (Feat. Hayley Williams), opens with a percussion rolling in a tango-esque beat. In the lyrics, Byrne and Williams grapple with what the purpose of love is. With the historical context of the tango being a partnered dance, while the lyrics analyze “Why do we talk about it? / What would that do? / 24 hours everyday” it creates an almost contradictory feel to the song, or as though the singers are trapped within it. They sing “What do we know about it? / We can not say,” alluding to how love can be this unspoken yet universally acknowledged thing. The song features sharp trumpets and saxophone blended with guitar to draw out a reedy question through the instruments.

Following those conflicting questions, “I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party” comes in with clacking percussion to raise questions about the purpose of another widely acknowledged concept: religion. This song distorts the vocals with underlying synth chords as Byrne initially questions what the Buddha is doing at the party. The response given, “I don’t have the answers, and I never did / They think I can help them, but I’m not that smart” is accompanied by building up wind instruments in synchronized despair. The message Byrne settles with is nihilistic, “Now, I don’t exist / And neither do you.” However, since “all of this suffering’s / Just a temporary thing / Right here is nirvana / Where the little crawdads sing,” he finds meaning in the moment, sharing a “blue blueberry tart” with the Buddha.

The album finishes off with “The Truth.” Staccato notes stand under the warnings of “Norma,” as she fears truth, since “Words at the wrong time / Hit the heart like a fist.” The instruments build through the song, starting off with only a marimba and gentle beads of percussion, then by the time Byrne decides to “bеg to differ with Miss Norma,” the melody has erupted, including flute and violins, layered brass and conga drums. Byrne regals the listener amidst it, singing “The truth cannot hurt me / I know what I know.” The song fades out with his declaration, “I know / I know.”