Album Review - They Might Be Giants - The World Is to Dig

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9 Apr

Written By James Brown

They Might Be Giants - John Linnell and John Flansburgh - image provided

Review By: Faith Hamblyn

Artist Name: They Might Be Giants

Album Name: The World Is to Dig

Label: Idlewild Recordings

Release Date: 19th March 2026

They Might Be Giants - The World Is to Dig

They Might Be Giants are very much New Yorkers — formed in the ‘80s, bespectacled, satirical and absurdist. While they’re not Steely Dan, they’re as appealingly hook-driven, addicted to goofy vernacular and perfectly at home playing the willfully nebbish underdog. Oscillating between weirdly poetic and nonsensical; from Flood, via Malcolm In The Middle to their 24th album, The World Is to Dig, they’re reliably curious, earnest and superbly nerdy.

And they’re suddenly dreaming of California in the first track, Back in Los Angeles. It sounds like cartoonish noir, filled with regret and swooping strings and guns and drinking ‘a Mrs Angry from the can.’ Rhyming, swooning, crooning, careening with conflicting images, it’s a swell film-noir time, but they can’t stay on this glum, rainy night West Coast for long, surely.

Following track, the single Wu-Tang, is indie-pop with Beach Boys harmonies, now with nasality. Singing ‘Wu-Tang’ repeatedly like it’s the main character in a musical or a Barry Manilow hit doesn’t make the phrase any more normal-sounding; it sound like a superhero’s theme song. It shuffles aimably, and it’s a hand-on-heart love song to RZA, SZA, Busta et al in The Wu-Tang Clan. It’s compelling, as sunny as college-rock REM, bubbly and bouncy and as headily as in love with an incongruous world as The Beastie Boys are with hip hop.

Sleep’s Older Sister is creepy, like a sleepwalk where you awake halfway, with toy-piano refrains and a marching resistance to figuring out what’s real and what’s a dream. Is sleep’s older sister a mobster stealing us away to secrete us in a shallow grave? It’s intoxicating, like goth-pop, dark with the guise of a lullaby. It could almost be sung by a clown-clad serial killer, a fun face on doom. The crash of drums beating the outro into echoing finality doesn’t sound optimistic, but we had no choice but to follow.

The strongest single so far, Outside Brain, sounds like They Might Be Giants from back in the day — you can chant along with the chorus, and the verses swing like Marshall Crenshaw-era rockabilly revival. It’s an upbeat open letter to explain to the finer folks about our anxiety as it crash-zooms us through the modern world. It’s punky and panicky, but in a bright, matter-of-fact way. Whizzing from pillar to post as fast as the spoken word, even though it’s all ridiculous, it’s all relatable — the reliability of Outside Brain to keep it together for us has never been so precarious.

Raspberries’ Overnight Sensation (Hit Record) is a surprise treat. Dipping into the kitsch, super-earnest soup of ‘70s glam rock, minus the pouting swoon, it marries They Might Be Giants backing vocals and genuinely noodly guitar breaks with Eric Carmen’s nutso braggadocio. Claiming to want instant fame this far along is funny, singing with the original rock-gusto and cheesy keyboards is funny, and doing it with the ironic devotion Raspberries inspire is just lovely.

As always, They Might Be Giants load up The World Is to Dig with just heaps of short, impeccably kooky songs, and there’s no end of gold to mine here, but I’ll end with one that stays with me so far, Character Flaw. Lyrically, it’s so nice — it opens with ordering extra-crazy sauce on the side and extra-crazy sauce also on the main course, and then, methodically, chaos ensues. While the songs are solid musically, punning and imaginatively rich, it’s the lyrics that stay with you, like the weirdest dream you ever had, with a child’s logic — “It has come to your house. It is shaking your paw. It’s my worst abomination; it’s my character flaw.”

RATING: 4 Stars