[music] THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS - The Spine Surfs Alone EP (tmbg.com)

This year's Indestructible Object EP showed TMBG trying to change their sound somehow. With about 20 years practice maintaining a coherent style despite the constant appropriation of, like, everyone else's shit, that could have been hard, but here's the thing: in all that time, they've consistently laid each song out pretty clearly for the listener. The vocals have almost always been clear, the weird instruments kept out of each other's way. This makes some people find them "too obvious", while some of their ickier fans mistake clarity for simplicity and write eye-stabbing moronic exegeses for TMBG websites.

This EP, however, is the first time I've listened to a TMBG record and really not known what to make of it. It's over-the-top in places, and I initially thought they were covering for a lack of material. Not so. This sounds more like a batch of demos that were herded through the finishing process differently (as did Indestructible Object -- I mean, nobody's going to be confused about what band this is underneath it all).

I'm all for that, though the price is outrageous for a 10-minute CDR with minimal packaging. Cheaper, and maybe more in keeping the with the band's intentions, if you just pay TMBG to download official mp3s.