They Might Be Giants - Join Us (Idlewild)
They Might Be Giants, or TMBG to their friends, are perhaps pop music’s most well-known cult act. They’ve been running unimpeded for three decades now, under no-one’s creative demands but their own, producing an overwhelmingly prolific body of work in the process. A prodigious history that includes fifteen(!) studio records, at least three children’s albums, and one very catchy TV theme tune (Malcolm In The Middle trivia fans); and yet, as treasured as they are to their fans they equally are an alternative musical cornerstone that many remain blissfully unaware of.
Join Us, the group’s first ‘serious’ album since 2007’s The Else, makes no concessions to the uninitiated. It’s a product clearly tilted towards the converted, adding another eighteen tracks to the group’s already heaving back-catalogue, but at its heart it may well be the band’s most all-encompassing and accessible set since the turn of the decade.
