Flood

9.5/10

  This is another one of those albums that I just have no objectivity over.  I discovered this album at exactly the right time and it instantly became a huge favorite.  I remember being around fifteen or sixteen years old and attending a summer music camp at NAU.  This guy that was staying a few doors down from me had this album and was constantly playing Istanbul and Particle Man over and over.  I immediately liked both of these songs and so inquired as to who the band was.  He showed me the album cover and I realized there were a whopping 19 tracks on here.  He seemed to really like those two tracks in particular but I talked him into playing the rest of the album for me.  Over the course of the two weeks I was at that camp I became obsessed with almost every song on this album.

  The particular standout for me was Birdhouse in Your Soul, which I still think has to be in consideration for best ever They Might Be Giants song.  It's uber-catchy, the lyrics are quirky and clever and it might even take you a couple listens to realize the narrator of the song is a canary-shaped nightlight.

  This album is bursting at the seams with catchy melodies and odd, funny lyrics from the image of everyone wanting prosthetic foreheads on their real heads in We Want a Rock to writing with a green magic marker on the back of Mr. Horrible's head in Someone Keeps Moving My Chair.

  Dead is another highlight with an unforgettable piano driven melody and memorable lines such as "I'll never see myself in the mirror with my eyes closed" and "I didn't apologize for when I was eight and I made my younger brother have to be my personal slave."

  There are certainly some lesser tracks scattered throughout the album, which is fairly typical form for this band.  My least favorite is probably Hot Cha.  Elsewhere Your Racist Friend is maybe a tiny bit preachy, but I can't argue with the message and the melody's still catchy.  Minimum Wage is a bit of a throwaway joke, but it's one hell of a tossed off joke.  Consisting of the title a hearty "Hee-Ya!" and a whipcrack followed by some bouncy music, it gets its point across in short order and is funny at the same time.

  The intro to Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love always kind of sounded like video game music to me for some reason.  The rest of the song isn't bad but it's never been one of my favorites.  They also include a song named after themselves and it's kind of odd, but also quite catchy.

  So even the not-quite-as-good tracks still offer something worthwhile and don't really detract from the album as a whole.  The rest of the album is so damn quirky and catchy.  As a somewhat nerdy and disaffected teenager it just really spoke to me.  It was so different from everything I'd heard at the time, it made me laugh, and it was just so deliciously odd.  When I got home from that camp I went to a record store as quickly as I could and bought this album.  I was stoked to learn they had other albums, too, and I bought those up as quickly as I could as well.  I liked the other albums, too, but this one was somehow just special.

  I'm not entirely certain this is even the band's best album.  There would be a solid argument to be made for Lincoln or possibly even John Henry.  But this is the one I heard first and personally fell the hardest for.  It's a great place to start if you're new to the band.  It might not be everyone's cup of tea.  Maybe it's a little too weird or nerdy for some people, but the catchy melodies are pretty undeniable.  If you're of the right temperament this could be your new favorite album.