They Might Be Giants "The Else" - surprisingly good

I owe it another listen, but nothing much on it really grabbed me at all aside from "Cap'm" and "With The Dark."

I'd rather say 'Take Out The Trash' or 'The Mesopotamians' than those two you mentioned.

ugh "Take Out The Trash" is like the ultimate example of a shitty Flansburgh song that sounds like he just made it up off the top of his head in the middle of a show.

i always seem to pass up on these guys but now that I think about it, I enjoyed Flood and Apollo 18- might have to check it out.

The first half is almost entirely devoid of humor - and TMBG without humor is just another indie rock band, and not an interesting one at that.

The humor in "The Cap'm", "The Shadow Government" and "Bee Of The Bird Of The Moth" is just not that funny, or repetitive of earlier bits they've done.

The only track that really stood out is on the bonus disc - conveniently packaged sans tracklisting.

I adored _Mink Car_, one of their best ever, and found _The Spine_ to be their weakest. I was hoping for a bounce-back but I'm afraid I'm done with TMBG after 20 years.

The bonus disc's tracklisting is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Else
Didn't even know about that, since I bought the album on iTunes back when it was first made available in May. Is it really good? I'm kinda curious now but I shudder to think about buying the same album twice when I don't like it much at all to begin with.

The bonus disc is fun, a mix of great ideas and noodling around. "Why did you grow a beard" and "Vestibule" are terrific - in part because they sound different than their standard indie rock approach.

I wasn't going to buy the new album but the inclusion of a bonus disc got me. I'm a total sucker for bonus discs.

It's probably strange, but I like the tunes of They Might Be Giants. As being not English/American, first I liked the songs without understanding a word of the lyrics - and I still think they write good melodies, even when it's without humour and "average indie rock".

I really should buy Mink Car one of these days. I saw them on that tour and it was the best I'd ever heard them sound. If this is at least better than The Spine, that's good news.

Further listens only deepen my love of the bonus disc and have softened my initial impression of the album but not that much. If you got it on iTunes, you should track down the bonus disc.

The Mesopotamians has been stuck in my head for 5 days now.

In a recent interview the Johns mentioned this album as being the standard they were trying to hit with their newer albums, so I listened to it again and they're right; it's remarkably tight, the songs are all memorable, and the lyrics are fantastic, I think it's exactly what the band needed to do after the lackluster Spine.

more like they might be putting out another album no one will listen to

of the (several!) albums they've released since The Spine, my favorite is easily Join Us, and Glean is somewhere in the lower middle.

i really loved this record when it came out

Join Us and Nanobots were fantastic. The Else was great too but less so. Glean might be as weak as Mink Car.

I haven't heard the full album yet, but I've liked all the Dial-a-Song tunes so far that I've heard so far (I have the subscription but sometimes I forget to listen to them). Though "As weak as Mink Car" isn't really a bad thing to me, I think a lot of the circumstances surrounding that album caused me to dislike it without really giving it a chance, because I like it way more now than I did when it was released.

okay, now that I've heard the full album, I can say...it's one of their best!!

It is!