They Might Be Giants: Mink Car : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

They Might Be Giants have hatched fifteen years' worth of cult-approved whimsy, but Johns Flansburgh and Linnell couldn't truly hit the big time until they fathered the Austin Powers track "Doctor Evil" and the music for Malcolm in the Middle. Their new album, Mink Car, reunites the duo with Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, the classic Brit-pop producers who helped craft their 1990 near-breakthrough, Flood. Here, Winstanley and Langer rein in TMBG's restless cleverness: Flansburgh and Linnell now set up their musical punch lines with fleshier arrangements, fatter hooks and deeper instrumentation. With its New Order-esque bass lines and sputtering drum machines, "Man, It's So Loud in Here" is at once irreverent early-Eighties dance-rock satire and melancholy tribute because the tune is almost as darkly beautiful as its source material. They Might Be Giants are just a stitch more serious about being silly, and that extra earnestness makes all the difference.