Review: They Might Be Giants, "The Else"

My sister recently got the latest They Might Be Giants CD, "The Else," which came out a few weeks ago. It is better than recent music from most bands I've heard lately, but it isn't quite as musically bombastic as their earlier stuff that I'm more familiar with. But even though the music isn't as off-the-wall as I'd expect from them, the lyrics are still humorously bizarre and catchy. To support my statements, I found a bit of trivia regarding the album that says that this is the only They Might Be Giants album where every track is longer than 2 minutes and the only album not to feature the accordion. However, I particularly loved the track "The Mesopotamians" which seemed to be about a fictional band of bronze-age despots including Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh. And as a bonus, the album did come with a 23-track bonus disc which features songs in high-fidelity which were previously only released via podcast. It has plenty of goofy songs that last less than 2 minutes and it does feature some nice accordion work.

Also, I just saw one of the music videos for the album on YouTube. Stop-motion animation + They Might Be Giants. Loads of fun. Not the best song on the album, but it's still good fun.