In 2005, They Might Be Giants released their 13th album titled “A User’s Guide To They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity,” and boy did that sum up the band in a nutshell. With the two-man alternative rock band going into its 32nd year of existence, John Flansburgh and John Linnell have been made 16 melodic, catchy, oddball studio albums since 1986. By this point, one would think the pair might start to run out of ideas to fit their unique sound, but with their new album “Nanobots,” TMGB prove that strong melody can still sound fresh even if the formula is three decades old.
With that being said, the formula does remain relatively the same on “Nanobots.” With clear, visual lyrics, simple chord progressions, jumpy guitars, accordions, a dash of weird and above all, very catchy hooks, the band sticks to what works. One could argue that TMBG should have gotten around to doing something completely different by this point in their career, but veteran listeners who still want a TMBG album to sound like a TMBG album will certainly be happy.
Sticking to the same formula does not make this a boring album – in fact, it is far from it. The album’s main strength is that each song is totally different from the one before it. For instance, a slow ominous song about black operatives, aptly named “Black Ops,” leads into “Lost My Mind,” a song about a man who has done just that. Later in the album, “Destroy the Past,” a 16-second jam about traveling into the yesteryears, shifts straight into the “9 Secret Steps” for self-improvement. The result is that the listener is never bored, making for a bright, enjoyable experience. The songs move by quickly, too, never overstaying their welcome. TMBG seem to know how to accommodate their quickly shifting melodies to fit listeners’ short attention spans. Verses move to choruses and back again in the blink of an eye, but the lyrics are always understandable and keep the verses stimulating.
Lyrics have always been a large part of TMBG albums, and “Nanobots” is no exception. Oftentimes humorous and always visual, the album’s lyrics paint a very clear picture in the listener’s head. However, by any song’s end, one might end up asking what the point of it was. An example of confusing lyrics is the second verse on “Icky” where it’s sung “He’s coming over to your house and isn’t going to leave till you loan him something/You’ve got a nice pair of slacks which he takes, but will only return one of them.”
Other tracks like the martial arts-themed “Circular Karate Chop” make things clearer, with the hilarious spoken passage “Three rules from your sensei. One: Outsource your feelings. Two: Limit your training to be task specific. Three: Assign regret to those accountable.” Other lyrics scattered throughout the album speak of everything from the achievements of Nikola Tesla to flammable heads.
Again, these characteristics should come as no surprise to They Might Be Giants’ longtime fans. The band’s formula does stay the same, but even if it is not quite as fresh as their classic albums “Flood” and “Lincoln” might have sounded in the 1990s, “Nanobots” is still a strong outing. For a band that has been around for as long as TMBG, it is amazing that they can still create fun, fast, catchy and melodic tracks that make an album like “Nanobots” a joy to listen to.
Niall Brady can be reached at [email protected].
