THE SPINE SURFS ALONE

run, and you run, and you run, and The Spine Surfs Alone. You get the fuck out of there, that Museum of Idiots you're trapped in. But the problem was never the Museum of Idiots, the problem was never that Bastard who wanted to Hit you, the problem was never your inability to Prevenge, the problem was you. It was always you.

Released simultaneously with The Spine, I consider The Spine Surfs Alone to be part of the text of the album. In particular, The Spine serves the role of exhausting what you have to do in the place that's clearly hurting you; but the memories don't go away.

The sonic confidence of The Spine continues with the song The Spine Surfs Alone, in which TMBG reminds you that they're a rock band by nearly descending into Sabbath worship. Nothing's gonna help you now — you're fucked, buddy! You don't have a scapegoat anymore. You're alone here.

Now Is Strange is a follow-up to The World Before Later On, to me. The World Before Later On is largely about trying to escape the present time, but you've ran away from the thing that's hurting you by now, and it's weird to have done so. You still can't escape the thoughts of the stuff that happened back there; they're All You Can Think About.

I'm All You Can Think About reminds me of a notion we found in late 2023, when we noticed that a lot of our art was kind of constricted to trauma; our trauma, specifically. It is largely about that, to us. It's about the narrator fixating on little details.

When one's in this kind of situation, they almost crave the hurt again; Fun Assassin discusses this, a song where, well, assassination becomes fun. I love Robin's vocals on this one. You almost see the hurt's afterimage lurking in the night; Skullivan.

Finally, Canada Haunts Me almost feels like trying to escape again, continuing to run away, not learning your lesson. Having an emotional resolution to The Spine's arc almost seems antithetical, and it works for me. Interestingly, there's a callback to James K. Polk on this with the line "54°40' or Fight!", a campaign slogan of the titular guy. Take that as you will.

It all wraps back around. You can keep running, but the problem was not someone else. The problem was you.