They Might Be Giants’ latest release, a lightning-quick romp called Indestructible Object, is repeatedly inscribed with the slogan “Installing and servicing melody since 1982.” And that is exactly what the band of Johns (duo John Linnell and John Flansburgh) does once again with this spoonful of idiosyncratic pop sensibility.
The EP kicks off with the hazy-eyed electro boogie-down “Am I Awake?” The track is also the theme song for the Learning Channel’s new medical reality program, “Resident Life,” continuing the band’s run of television theme song success (which culminated in a 2002 Grammy for “Malcolm in the Middle” opener “Boss of Me”).
“Am I Awake?” trudges through the days of an insomniac at the end of his rope, a confusing life-ballad for every late-night writer or incandescent party personality at an after-hour gig. The song comes off like a bewildering short story with lyrics pressing up against insecure insanity: “The coffee’s cold / Did I forget to drink it yet? / My clothes are wet / I don’t remember drinking it.” The skittering beat-box jabberings and dance-music decompositions usher TMBG back into the world of adult music after their 2002 children’s record No! and 2003’s Bed, Bed, Bed became huge hits with kids and their parents.
“Memo to Human Resources” chronicles another disembodied soul as TMBG supplies the character with a quirky rock stratosphere. The band follows the plight of a man constricted by a lost love and his obsession over his car, and TMBG doesn’t miss making use of every second of this two-minute ditty. Linnell eerily (and on such a melodic upper) concludes, “Then the people came to talk me down / But I don’t need advice — I’m down.”
With “Au Contraire,” the Johns build a decisively adult rhyme scheme (“Au Contraire, you square / Wash that notion from your hair”) and name-drop a dreamscape menagerie of celebrities including David Bowie, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Jodie Foster as the ethereal gathering rambles on about nonsense philosophy. The swirling guitar makes for an unnaturally poppy excursion into the subconscious.
The Giants then rework their song “Ant” with mixed success, but it is the EP’s most expressive moment of goofiness and simplicity combining to form a succinct surreal moment of lucidity. Horns form an unbreakable wall of presidential sound behind the intuitive political lullaby: “The president calls your name in the nighttime … / The men ransack your house in the nighttime / But you think that’s okay while you’re sleeping.” It’s a quizzical call to action, striking out against indifference in TMBG’s unique way.
The final track is a perfunctory cover of the Beach Boys’ “Caroline, No.” And the Johns nail down Brian Wilson’s dichotic serotonin imbalance with a beautifully disarming live version (recorded on National Public Radio’s Studio 360). Brass and accordion and teenage lovelorn lunacy fit perfectly within TMBG’s realm of quirkiness and deft musical abilities.
This band has been responsible for the most whacked-out radio hits (whether about the physics of the sun, lighthouse keepers or a girl’s bangs and pocket T-shirt) any brainiac has ever conceived. If Indestructible Object is any indication of what TMBG’s next full-length will sound like, fans (and everyone else) can look forward to a classic.
Grade: A/B
