Categories
PHONING IT IN

Phoning It In: “End Of The Rope”

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.

“End Of The Rope” isn’t an impressive song in the hit-single sense, but it figures to slot nicely into an album (e.g., Glean) because it’s got an interesting instrumental texture and a noirish vibe that has served They Might Be Giants well in the past. I’m thinking of the strong vocal presentation of “Minimum Wage,” for example, which is a dramatic change from the vocal tone elsewhere on Flood. If this seems like a cop-out to reach the milquetoast pastures of 7/10, you’re largely correct. But it could be a game-changer in the context of a playlist later on.

File-A-Song: 7/10