It was something of a miracle how long They Might Be Giants managed to preserve their trademark madcap optimism intact. It lasted right through to their last album, Book (2021). In The World is to Dig, they are still holding on to it in some tracks, but in others it is clear that even they have finally succumbed to ubiquitous world-weariness.
Maybe the surprise is that they stayed immune from it for so long. The band’s two Johns, Flansburgh and Linnell, are now in their mid-sixties, their band has been going for over four decades, this is their 24th album. But it is hard to ignore a new vibe of gloom in many songs, starting with the opening track. The lyric “It’s great to be back in Los Angeles” comes from a singer who just sounds mightily hacked off.
Among the 18 songs here, there are many further examples of this mood shift. We have a song about just being tired and wanting to lie down (“Je N’en Ai Pas). We have another about trying to shut out false information and hate, in which the tuning is made to grate with microtonal shifts (“Telescope”). There is a truly depressive number “Garbage In” which again makes a feature of a singer with weak and uncertain tuning. One of the most positive features of TMBG has always been an obvious affection for the songs they write. There has been bite in the words, but insouciant glee in the music, preserving an understanding with fans. To me at least, examples such as these of undermining the solidity and the quality of the music risk breaking that pact. I found I was balancing moments of enjoyment with reasons to be disappointed.
True, the band’s sound and the vibe are inimitable, and their regular cohort of musicians such as Danny Weinkauf (bass), Marty Beller (drums) and Dan Miller (guitar) are all present and correct on the new album. And since the song forms are typically short – with most tracks coming in at under three minutes – all kinds of adventures are possible, and there is always the next song, the next needle drop, to raise the mood.
For example, the two punchy singles which have been issued in advance of the full album, are the two songs most redolent of the typical TMBG sound and ethos as it is understood. Both “Wu-Tang” and the excellent “Character Flaw” – the latter very reminiscent of TMBG’s signature song “Birdhouse in My Soul” from the classic album Flood – will please the band’s faithful.
There is also one particularly nice surprise, a cover of The Raspberries’ 1974 single “Overnight Sensation”. This new version diverges from the musical sequence of the original, to include a very classy guitar solo from Dan Miller, but the meat is there, with every word of the original lyric clearly stated. On one level it is authentic and autobiographical: Linnell says he remembers the song being played on the school bus. But the timing of TMBG’s releasing this song is deliciously ironic. Just as all songwriters are starting to deal with the tsunami of AI slop and fakery – it feels deliciously ironic to be returning to a song about making hit records, and one which so vividly portrays a much more innocent world.
There are episodes of The World is to Dig where one wants to forgive TMBG. They are a band, and they have a songwriting concept which have brought so much joy for so long. But there are others that are better to forget.
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