Album Review: No! by They Might Be Giants

While They Might Be Giants' clever, playful melodies and lyrics make their music nearly ideal listening for kids anyway, their first children's album, No!, is one of their most dizzying and delightful in years. If Mink Car found They Might Be Giants reclaiming some of the sounds and ideas they pioneered on albums like Flood, then No! is both another step backward and forward, featuring some of their weirdest material since their left-of-center debut in 1986. Tweaked vocals, sound effects, and songwriting abound on "I Am a Grocery Bag," a stream-of-consciousness meditation that could double as the band's shopping list ("Juices, muffins, pasta, and cheese/Milk and biscuits and cocktail sauce/I am a grocery bag"); "I Am Not Your Broom," a declaration of independence from John Flansburgh's broom; and "Bed Bed Bed," an anti-lullaby that mixes stomping rock, dissonant jazz, ticking clocks, and mooing cows.

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