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PHONING IT IN

Phoning It In: “Impossibly New”

TMBG

They Might Be Giants have resurrected their ingenious Dial-A-Song concept by streaming a new song each week of 2015 at www.dialasong.com. MAGNET’s Matthew Fritch reviews them all.

Citizens of Dial-A-Song are now living in the post-Glean era, where the fate of each new weekly entry is uncertain, pimps and thieves run free, and good men die like dogs. Wait, what? It’s time to admit that the quality of the weekly songs has exceeded expectations thus far, and some of that could be attributable to inclusion on Glean. That is, TMBG is not in a state of constant studio recording, but laid down a bunch of album tracks and slowly released them. (Which is fine; no criticism there.) What’s left to ponder is the remainder of the year’s songs, where they come from, and where they end up.

“Impossibly New” ambles down the same Appalachian-folk road where we last saw the Handsome Family*, imparting the tale of true believers arriving at a town full of “bitter dudes throwing rocks and flipping birds.” Like previous Dial-A-Song entry “Good To Be Alive,” it’s a refreshing bit of tranquility.

*When we saw them on that road, Brett and Rennie were arguing with each other.

File-A-Song: 8/10