Being their 16th studio album in a 31 year-long career should tell you just how prolific ‘The Two Johns’ (that’s Flansburgh and Linnell) of They Might Be Giants are.
Yet throughout their enormous body of work, it seems that creativity is a font that’s never run dry for the American duo, keeping the classic Tin Pan Alley tradition of songwriting-as-production-line craft alive while honing their trade like a well-flexed muscle.
Nanobots’ 25 tracks, averaging from just six seconds to sub-three minutes in length, slot nicely into a pop catalogue already festooned with natty songs as smart in craft as they are in production and arrangement.
The kooky lyrical topics – such as combustible heads (‘You’re On Fire’), covert Military pow-wows (‘Black Ops’), and insect hospitals (ugh, ‘Insect Hospital’) – are as diverse as the musical styles.
Surf-rock mingles pleasantly with 50’s doo-wop on ‘Call You Mom’, ‘Sometimes A Lonely Way’ twinkles like the best American radio balladry, and the 17-second ‘Nouns’ could be an imaginary jingle to a kids show about anthropomorphic grammar (and a nice nod to their award-winning childrens albums).
For all their inherent quirk and eclectic tastes however, TMBG’s greatest strength is that they never feel contrived or convoluted. Nanobots is so thoroughly listenable because its eccentricities are just what come naturally to the duo.
There’s nothing here that particular extends what Flansburgh & Linnell have been excelling at for decades, and nothing that will really convert new acolytes either.
It’s simply business as usual, but business –as always – is very good indeed.
