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The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was, which follows Thomas' brilliant 2020 HBO special The Golden One and his Can't Believe You're Happy Here EP released earlier this year, surveys a range of emotion and offers a broad sonic palette, moving between pop punk, electro, and the obvious influence of the singer-songwriters he grew up listening to in early childhood. It conjures the ennui of Bright Eyes alongside the barefaced storytelling of John Prine, the overstuffed lists of Fred Thomas with the lackadaisical humor of Colleen Green, among many others.Thomas attributes the dexterity of the record to Duterte, who recorded and engineered most of it in addition to serving up plenty of encouragement when Thomas got down on the process. InchAs a comic, I used to test out new songs during sets to see if the funny bits were hitting, but since I wrote this in isolation I ended up writing lyrics and worrying less about making jokes,Inch Thomas says. That said, the album's plenty funny. Stand-out and lead single InchRigamaroleInch opens with a Thomas-voiced infomercial that recalls his oft-cited lookalike Jim Carrey as the Grinch, before launching into a buoyant pop song about being depressed.Whitmer Thomas will admit that when he traveled home to small town Gulf Shores, Alabama to record his HBO stand-up special, The Golden One, he expected to be greeted as a returning hero, a conquering king, or at minimum, a guy with a moderately successful career as an entertainer in Los Angeles. InchI expected a big welcome home, open arms, but when I went back I realized nobody fucking knows me. Nobody remembers me,Inch Thomas says. InchIn the years I'd been performing that show, I'd been romanticizing my childhood in this mythologized place, but the visit made me see that I'm not really from there anymore.InchThe sense of alienation compounded when Thomas recognized how few people in town re
