They Might Be Giants - The Else
Okay, by this point, They Might Be Giants are hardly a tough sell for me. They’ve been a favorite of mine since the mid-90s or so, and they’ve continued to impress the hell out of me, particularly over the last few years. The sheer volume of work produced by these two guys is nearly overwhelming — from the Venue Songs project of their 2004 tour (in which they wrote a new original song for each stop along the tour) to a 20+ minute podcast each month, not to mention regular new material on their website, MySpace page, and hired work for a vast assortment of media ventures, it’s nearly a full-time job just keeping up with it all.
You’d think, then, that they could simply throw a bunch of these peripheral works together and call it an album without giving the issue a second thought. But rather than the cop-out pastiche that it could be, The Else instead serves as an important reminder that the best rock albums aren’t just a collection of unrelated songs. Like several of their previous efforts (The Spine and John Henry come immediately to mind), The Else feels like a cohesive whole — like these specific songs needed to be put together in this specific order.
This is not to say that all the songs sound alike — far from it, actually. While there is a certain intangible force holding it all together, The Else traverses a pretty broad sonic and emotional spectrum in its all-too-short 38 minutes. The ever-present surreal wit is here as always, but there’s also a pervasive melancholy that hasn’t been prominent in a TMBG recording since the days of John Henry. I kinda dig that — melancholy feels like it’s worth more coming from guys who aren’t moping all the time.
The presence of the Dust Brothers as producers certainly doesn’t hurt either. Again, one hardly has to twist my arm to convince me to try anything produced by the guys who did Paul’s Boutique, Tenacious D’s first album and the soundtrack to Fight Club. And fortunately for all involved, the winning streak continues here.
An anectdote I picked up on a TMBG wiki pretty much sums up why I love this band so much. Presented by a radio show with a challenge to incorporate several nearly obsolete words, John Linnell penned one of The Else’s strongest entries, “Countrecoup.” They really are my nerd idols, and as long as they keep churning out material, I’ll be there with a smile on my face, rhythm in my soul and a question mark hovering directly over my head.