4.15.2015

A review of They Might Be Giants' "Glean"














Since their debut album, released in 1986, They Might Be Giants, led by John Flansburgh and John Linnell, have had a penchant for pairing up-beat, cheery melodies with crushingly depressing, bleak-as-hell lyrics.* They continue this long-standing tradition with their seventeenth studio album, Glean, which could be considered their darkest album to date. Themes addressed include drudgery, murder, depression, alienation...and that's just side one. Side two covers the rest of the Gray Rainbow of Human Failings; inertia, incomprehension, agoraphobia, self-deception and self-medication.
Are you starting to get why these guys dislike being written off as "quirky"?
Almost every track here is masquerading as something else; the poppy, driving opener, "Erase", touches on repetition and strangulation, the seemingly sweet love song, "Answer" is a laundry list of compromises and disappointments, and "Underwater Woman", with its throbbing sonic intricacies, resounds with heartrending isolation and insanity.** There's only one instance on Glean where the mask slips and both the music and lyrics are in alignment, namely, "End of the Rope", where the desperation is laid bare for the listener to experience without an accordion to quirk it up. 
Not everything here is a corpse wearing a clown suit though; "Aaa" is a delightfully frantic interlude which centers around asking questions, questions, and more questions, some screamed at the top of one's voice, perhaps while covered in sweat, "Madame, I Challenge You to a Duel" is a breezy, summery tune (just one of a handful of really fantastic Flansburgh gems here) inspired by an altercation between Shelley Winters and Oliver Reed on the Tonight Show, "Unpronounceable" sounds familiar on its first listen and only gets better from there, and "Music Jail, Pt. 1 & 2" is just jouncing, schizophrenic fun.
TMBG's last album, 2013's Nanobots, was an absolute triumph, nothing as worn out and disingenuous as a "return to form", more a thrilling evolution of their sound, and there was a lot riding on Glean as its follow up. Glean's only clear failing (aside from having ten fewer tracks than its predecessor***) is the overwhelming sense of dichotomy; there are great Flansburgh songs and there are great Linnell songs, but, aside from tiny moments on "Unpronounceable" and "I Can Help the Next in Line", the two never really share any of Glean's fifteen tracks. This is supposed to be a They Might Be Giants album.
So, what did I glean from this album?**** That They Might Be Giants are three decades into their career and still making multifaceted, relevant, intriguing, well constructed music, and that their Dial-A-Song experiment, at least thus far, has been a booming success.

* It is, by no means, all they do, but, it seems, it's become what they're best known for, even though it's not some sort of gimmick or excercise in pointlessly wacky juxtaposition; the music and lyrics both hold equal importance.
** In fact, if one wants to take this sentiment of disguise and misconception further, one could look at the artwork accompanying the album: a serene treescape, marred by a detailed anatomical illustration of the human salivary gland; something vulnerable and glistening and ugly at the center of things...yeah, these guys are just too quirky. 
And I love that song from that "Malcolm" show.
*** And yet, Glean manages to clock in only five minutes shorter than Nanobots
**** See, while Glean is the title of the album, it can also mean "to learn or discover", making the above sentence a pun. Which is clever.

4.01.2015

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - March 2015

They Might Be Giants

Dial-A-Song Round Up! pt. 3

"I Can Help The Next In Line" is a short and relatively sparse (slightly porn-y) disco biscuit from Linnell. The video is fantastic and bolsters what's lacking in the song, not that that really improves the song. This is the first thing from DAS that actually sounds like DAS, if you dig, and that's not entirely a good thing; it's feels sort of like it's missing something, like it's just a demo*. Maybe an extra verse or instrument. Not bad, and it really does a great job of growing on you, but it doesn't stack up to what's come thus far.

"Good To Be Alive" feels a bit like "Answer" in that it's more "grown up" than a lot of the other tracks offered here. The lyrics are pretty straightforward and seemed to be about someone recovering from some accident or misfortune even before I saw the video, which takes the general theme of the lyrics and makes that ambiguous misfortune into a Yeti attack.

"Unpronounceable" sounds a bit like a theme to an early 90's TGIF show. As far as its staccato arrangement, it absolutely meets the original DAS specs. There's some great production around the edges for headphone folks and some awesome soaring guitars. Something a bit similar about the popcorn in "Good To Be Alive" and the general beat of this, so I'm hoping those two aren't back-to-back on Glean. This was an instant favorite for me.

Just as "Underwater Woman" became one of my favorite DAS tracks almost immediately. Incredibly sad with perfect emotive bass and subtle horns. There's also a startlingly literal video** to accompany it that has some TMBG fans up in arms. No one likes literal interpretations of They Might Be Giants songs.

And, finally, released just yesterday, a dub-flavored, summery Flans jam called "I'm A Coward". Enjoying it more every time I listen to it and I dig that math.

Now, the kvetching...another downside that floated up from the toxic part of my mind is how normal these tracks are. Fully produced, polished and accompanied by an actual music video...they feel too clean. I want more weird. When I first heard about Dial-A-Song returning, I was expecting a lot more stuff like "Lesson 16", "Turtles of North America" and "(She Was A) Hotel Detective In The Future" (and it's accompanying commentary), and, while I'm genuinely enjoying most everything that's comes out, I was hoping for a bit more oddities.
Although, according to Flans, the last few weeks of December are going to be rife with panic and weirdness, so I'm not giving up yet. 

Anyway, another incredibly strong bunch of songs, the majority of which will appear on They Might Be Giants' 17th studio album, Glean, coming April 21st. Glean review should show up here in a few weeks.


And, Alessandro Cortini released his third (and final?) Forse album. Good for him. If you like ambient stuff and/or his first two releases, check it totally out.
Review is HERE!!!!!

* As fully produced and mixed and fleshed out as it is.


** Created by Mark Marek, who's worked with TMBG in the past on their "(She Was A) Hotel Detective" EP cover art and the "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" music video.