While they have never actually released an album I didn’t like, Nanobots is ranking up there among my favorites so far. At 25 tracks, there is no shortage of magic. Yes, a handful of these tracks are short, “Fingertips” style tunes that clock in between 6 and 50 seconds, but as is plainly evident in the Fingertips tracks of Apollo 18, duration is just as much a musical element to be exploited as key, tempo and time signature.

Case in point: Sleep.

The tragic beauty of this song would be tragically less so, if more time was taken to get to the punch line. There are also plenty of regular length songs to ponder the meanings of while singing along.

I’ve always thought Flansburgh’s and Linnell’s voices blended nicely, but they tend to favor overdubbing their own harmonies. Nanobots seems to have a few more of the John on John harmonies I prefer—Sleep not withstanding.

This is a really strong record. If you haven’t given TMBG a listen in a few years, Nanobots could bring you back around.

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