I'm two months late, but I'm writing about the new They Might Be Giants album! I remembered writing about the last one but forgot I didn't actually try to write about every song last time, so this time there are too many words. If you don't know anything about They Might Be Giants this might not be interesting so feel free to go somewhere else.
Eyeball
A platonic ideal Linnell song. Confrontational, obsessive narrator? Lyrical quotations I'm not cultured enough to understand? Driving harmony? It's all there. This one has a particularly great intense chorus (?) with a very effective interplay between Linnell and Flansburgh's backing vocals. Not so much a fan of the arrangement, though. The on-beat piano chords and generally uniform oom-pah drumming kind of drag everything down.
The Glamour of Rock
I heard them play this live ages back when it was their only preview song for the new project and I was all like "ok this sounds kind of nice but it kind of has the consistency of oatmeal." I was pleasantly surprised by how much more dynamic the EP recording was. Maybe they punched up the horn arrangement, maybe Flansburgh is singing more passionately. Are the Picardy thirds new, too?
Peggy Gugenheim
This is really fun. Love the horns and the instrumentation in general, love the action thriller mood. These guys really consistently make their instrumentals special.
Eyeball (Elegant Too Remix)
God Johns please let them produce an entire album for you. The less dense arrangement lets the buildups work so much better, and the goofy little repeated phrases and riffs they added are everything, to me.
Back in Los Angeles
When I read the track list before release I was bewildered that a song with this title was the opener. "The Johns are from Brooklyn but they're singing about California? Are they selling out? Are they stupid?" Then the instant I started the album and the electric keyboard and violin came in I was all like "fuck sorry for doubting you." Took me an embarrassingly long time to realize none of the places and things Linnell was listing were real but once I got that this is a "surreal meander" song it was great. I love this and I love how it announces "hey this is album's gonna be more psychedelic." Definitely the weirdest choice for an opener they've had since S-E-X-X-Y (another song with prominent strings!)
Wu-Tang
Ok I see why Eyeball and Wu-Tang couldn't both be on the album. This is definitely "Eyeball 2". "Eyeball 3," I guess, since there were two Eyeballs on Eyeball? Anyway what can I say, Linnell knows what he's doing with these standard Linnell pop songs. I especially like the sort of stripped-down and circular-progression feel of the "listen to the sound on the CD" section and the catharsis of the last drawn out "Wu-Tang"s in the chorus. Very "Canajoharie." Also of course the interplay between Linnell and Flansburgh's backing vocals on the chorus is great, but that was Eyeball's trick.
Writing a song as a tribute to an artist you admire but putting in nothing to do with that artist in beyond their name is kinda funny.
Sleep's Older Sister
The "Super Cool" of this album. Lovely mysterious but driving instrumental, nice smooth Flans vocals. Songs about death are like the most trodden ground these guys have to cover but this is a more poetic example than usual, so no complaints. Switching to a motorik beat halfway through the chorus is a nice trick. Also, in light of "Three Might Be Duende", congrats to Death on her transition!
Je N'en Ai Pas
Feels like a very by-the-books rock anthem in production, but short enough and with enough buildup and payoff not to be boring. The metronomic sixteenth-note riffs are kinda funny but they work. Classic Linnell move I guess. I dunno any French, so reading the translation and finding out that the whole song is "guy is tired and complaining" was a happy moment. A truly universal song.
Outside Brain
First few listens I was disappointed that there weren't more fun chords, but "HELL YEAH ROCK AND ROLL" won out in the end. The melody is interesting even if the harmony doesn't go as many places as I'd like and the band is just playing it too well. *Guy who rarely listens to harder rock than They Might Be Giants voice* The guitar riffs at the start of the verse and end of the chorus are so great!!
Let's Fall in Lava
The title is silly, one of the first lines is... "What would Terminator 2 feel if he could feel," all the other lines are meant to be funny too, but this is like... a serious song?? This is a serious song about accepting a mutually destructive relationship in the name of familiarity and undeniable human connection?? Certain reviewers I could name are bothered Linnell doesn't write emotionally direct songs anymore. Well, seems like he snuck one in.
Now is a good time to note that this album's mixing/mastering is kind of messed up. Most tracks feel muddied by loudness and too rough, and this particular track has a weird intermittent buzzing (not often enough to be much of a bother, but prominently enough to raise an eyebrow.)
Telescope
I'm not sure the Johns have realized from "Stuff is Way" that if they wrote more short songs they would all be bangers and the right kind of bangers to make them TikTok thousandaires. Normally I'd applaud an artist for sticking to their true passions instead of going more commercial, but I want them to sell out too!! A modern project like Fingertips would go so hard!! But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the reason their short songs are all bangers is because they only release the really special ones. Anyway, this one is also very good. The melody is simple but rhythmically interesting, the percussion is eerie, the synths are eerie, the lyric is eerie, yearning, and unplaceably sad.
Garbage In
Love the melancholic Beach Boys sort of mood and how all over the place and dramatic the chords are. I do not like the wordless vocals though. Might just be the filter over them but they feel grating. Also, ending with the original tonic chord with no setup was not the best choice, I feel. First few listens I legitimately forgot that it *was* the original tonic chord and thought they slapped it on just to try to transition to the next track.
Get Down
Thank God for Linnell's periodic disco obsession. It always leads to great things.
New Wave Will Never Die
Funny lyrics to put on an album that dips into older styles of music so hard. Instrumentally, this is the most interesting one on the album for me (followed by, in no particular order, Sleep's Older Sister, Back in Los Angeles, and Telescope.) I like the percussion, I like the guitar tone, I like the keyboard lines, and I really like the spooky vocal synth.
Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)
I listened to the Raspberries original when this track was announced and was not too impressed. I'm still kinda bemused by the Johns' choice as a chords and melody guy, but the lyrics are fun. I think this cover is an improvement, though. The arrangement's just more earcatching.
Character Flaw
The instant earworm one. Putting aside that this is a quasi-anti-Trump song, I feel this song has the makings of a reclaimed "freak anthem" like Dr. Worm... except Linnell preempted us by saying that the titular flaw is "not part of my charm" and "not pleasant at all." Alas. Maybe it will become a freak anthem anyway. Also, the detuning on the synth is nice. Scratches the brain itch.
Hit the Ground
John Flansburgh's sad indie songs are the most underrated part of the modern TMBG catalogue.
Completely unrelated train of thought: I like the lil descending scale line before each chorus. Linnell's usually the one to make scandalously obvious use of scales with little embellishment but nice to see Flansburgh getting in on it here.
What You Get
Another "standard Linnell song," but having been written two decades ago for the Coraline movie, one from a bygone era. And also magnitudes better than usual because he's showing off at literally everything. The harmony drags you all over the place but still feels logical somehow, there's a whole bunch of evocative imagery and half of it's about death, he's playing with language every chance he gets. I'm also particularly enjoying the Mayor of Simpleton-esque bass line in the verse. Well, dunno if they were going for Mayor of Simpleton or going for the vibe of the songs XTC were also going for.
Slow
More microtones!! I am always glad to hear Linnell's microtonal songs but this seems like a step down from Dog or I Haven't Been Right Yet. Chromatic descents and ascents are effective but relatively uninteresting to build an entire song around without significant rhythmic complexity. I wasn't a fan of the very literal-seeming narrative lyric at first either but it kinda grew on me, especially leading as it does to its final image.
In the Dead Mall
Intense but somehow not in the same way as the rockabilly it's calling back to. Beyond the depressive lyrics, it's gotta be the instrumental breaks... the descending guitar lines that go on just a little longer than they feel like they should.
What the Cat Dragged In
This is one of my less preferred ones. Linnell's singing sometimes sounds "exposed" in an unusual way for him and the metaphor he's dragging out feels too limp to carry the whole chorus. I don't really hate it though, I just can't get totally into it. Also the opening lines and "I'm bringing some snacks from an unknown source to keep you confused" especially are bangers. Also really like the general vibe of the arrangement. Musical theater garage rock, plus horns, is a good place to be.
They Might Be Feral
There's an interview out there where Flansburgh explains this song was simplified from its original form with "too many scene changes," which is funny to me because this song *still* struck me as having a disorienting number of "scene changes." Also a disorienting number of switches between first and third person. All the sections are good and the whole thing is pretty anthemic, though. It makes a great closing track, though perhaps not in a way complementary to the opener. I guess they're both kind of about Americana in their own way, but to me it seemed the psychedelia, or at least "vague 60s-70s vibe" was the actually important subject Back in Los Angeles introduced. That's what actually got carried through to (many of) the other tracks on the album.
Also gonna be real, outside of what the wiki quoted John as saying about it I have no idea what this song is actually about. I'm too dumb to be a TMBG fan tbh.
This album holds together in the same way The Spine does (wearing its 60s-70s influences on its sleeve, projecting optimism while having rather few genuinely optimistic songs) which artificially endears it to me. It left a better first impression on me than Book as a result, but I can't actually conclude it's better (the mixing got even rougher, for one thing...) What I can conclude is that it made me happy during a sorta hellish time, and made a good many other people happy too. Thanks fellas.
It keeps happening. Lots of it
The button wall on the link page has been updated and uhh not much else. Next thing here will probably be a whole bunch of new albums in the collection section on the music page (got a whole bunch of CDs as gifts I still need to get through.) All other projects previously mentioned may or may not appear eventually too.