THE PAMPHLET

The Pamphlet EP, released alongside BOOK, is a deeply strange EP. It's the first EP TMBG has done since 2013, and so we're kind of rusty writing about it.

After BOOK, this EP makes sense; it is, after all, Less Than One. I do think that you should listen to it before BOOK, though. The production on this EP is strange, fragmentary, even, like a small taste of what's to come. Each track is about something about to happen with the exception of Fortnight.

Helicopters Of Elves feels cut off before it ends; a paramilitary force shows up, that of elves, and nothing... happens. It's dire. But nobody will do it. This strings into probably one of the few TMBG covers I care about, Buckle Down, Winsocki, which is recontextualized by its place. If only someone were to Buckle Down. If only.

There Will Be Sad feels like a continuation of the Join Us-Glean-I Like Fun arc; it went from death to dying to thinking about death to thinking about thinking about death. I find that interesting, even if BOOK is kind of a beast on its own.

I cannot hope to reasonably interpret Fortnight; it's largely a song that seems to thrive in the fact that it is incomplete. It feels like part of a song; the first verse feels like it demands more, the runtime feels like it demands more. Who even talks like that?

Who even talks like TMBG?