They Might Be Giants - The Else (Album)
The 12th studio album from They Might Be Giants, The Else has been produced in conjunction with The Dust Brothers (of Beck, Beastie Boys and Tone-Loc production fame) and was released on iTunes one month before the CD was released. Which is pretty much the nerdy type of thing you’d expect from They Might Be Giants – I only found out when I got this album that they have a free monthly podcast.
‘I’m Impressed’ is a solid starting track but the album really starts with ‘Take Out The Trash’ – a great poppy love song asking a girl to kick her boyfriend to the kerb.
To be honest, the next couple of tracks are a little slow. I guess I just always expect every They Might Be Giants song to have similar qualities to the singles I know so well, ‘Birdhouse in Your Soul’ or ‘Don’t Lets Start’.
The good kooky pop starts happening about track six with ‘The Cap’m’ and then continues through to the final track.
‘The Shadow Government’ is a synth driven political pop track showing a meth lab owners lament “where’s the shadow government when you need it”. It’s quite possibly quirky for the sake of it, but the music that accompanies well and truly makes up it.
The absolute standout track is ‘Withered Hope’ a song about a girl and a very sad sack who wears his heart on his sleeve. But it’s all about the sampling, the horns and the up-beat tempo. It’s single-worthy.
The final track on “The Else” is ‘The Mesopotamians’. It’s a strong finish too, a pop song about being in a band called The Mesopotamians “they wouldn’t understand a word we say/ so we’ll scratch it all down into the clay”. This track has more than an inkling of the stuff that television theme tunes are made out of.
“The Else” is a must for any They Might Be Giants fan, and a might for fans of math pop. It’s not their best album, but after 12 studio albums to still have creativity and still be together…. well that’s good enough for me.
Oh and if you buy the CD version of “The Else”, you get a bonus 23 disc called “Cast Your Pod to the Wind” – a disc of highlights from their podcasts. Worth the cost of “The Else” for any fan that doesn’t regularly download.
