The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Borders is dying. You might have heard. There was a Borders I always bummed internet from when I was in St. Louis, and now it is leaving! Boo! But I went to pick clean it’s carcass, of course. I was hoping for RPG sourcebooks, but had no luck there. However, at some point I went, “Wait, TMBG have a new album out,” and wandered to the music section. Then I bought it. On physical media. Crazy. But I told you that already.

I had heard Join Us was a better album than The Else, and I didn’t know what to think about that. I really hated The Else in the beginning. It just didn’t click with me at ALL. However, after a long downtime, I came back around to it and really ended up liking a couple tracks. I’m Impressed and Take Out The Trash, for instance, are pretty solid, and I enjoy them. It’s not their best album, but it was alright. However, people were talking about Join Us as a return to form, and that worried me. I enjoy a TMBG that rocks, not just one that makes silly songs.

I need not have worried. Join Us is a callback to some of their older stuff, but they still bring excitement.

By far, my favorite song is When Will You Die. (That is a pony video, but it’s the only one on youtube with the song! So, yeah.) It is just SO FUCKING UPBEAT and it’s language is so hateful. It is just so classic TMBG, and it’s so catchy on top of it. Lots of nice horns. SO GOOD.
I also really like The Lady and the Tiger and Cloisonné as well. Both interesting musically and catchy. I also like that they’re trying the weird round thing they do in Spoiler Alert, although that’s not one of my favorites. (Sorry, no good Youtube of that one.)

Really, though, what puts this album higher than The Else is that I find the whole thing listenable. I can pretty well go through the whole thing without issues. I especially like how the last track fades very interestingly into the first, if you have the whole album on repeat.

I don’t think Join Us is going to make new fans out of anyone who wasn’t into the Giants before. But seriously, even if you’ve kind of fallen out of love with them, this is worth a listen. It’s a fun little album that I’m glad I bought. I have bad taste in music, but this is good stuff.