They Might Be Giants’ latest album, I Like Fun, might not have started out as a single, coherent story, but singer John Flansburgh notes that a theme shows up on the record released this month.

“When you put it all together, it’s sort of like the band is trapped in a dystopia that resembles 2017,” says the Massachusetts native. “We don’t write topical songs, but we do live in the world, so it’s sort of inevitable that sometimes that stuff rubs off.”

Touring behind their 20th album, the storied alternative rock band will perform at The Beacham in downtown Orlando on Thursday.

They Might Be Giants, known as TMBG to fans, began as a duo comprised of Flansburgh and John Linnell in 1982. Working with drum machines and samples, the two multi-instrumentalists released their self-titled debut album in 1986. “We felt like we were living in the future and the format we were in made just as much sense as any other format,” said Flansburgh on the phone from the road.

Throughout the ’80s, TMBG were also known for Dial-A-Song, a hot line they maintained with a Brooklyn number that would play one of their songs when called. In 2015, the band revived the feature with an 800 number and put out a new song each week, resulting in three new albums of material.

They Might Be Giants received some radio play for songs such as “Birdhouse in Your Soul” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” from 1990’s “Flood.” While critics praised their innovation, Flansburgh acknowledges the concerts were a different story.

“I think we were very blissfully unaware of how unimpressed the people in the back rows of our shows were,” he said.

In 1994, the pair added new band members in the studio and on stage to become a quintet. “From the moment we took on live musicians, we went from being a kind of interesting experiment to being a really powerful, compelling live act,” said Flansburgh, 57.

The band has a reputation for being experimental, but Flansburgh sees its oeuvre through a more traditional lens. “A lot of people make really interesting experimental art music, and the quality of what they’re doing is high, but it’s hard for them to find an audience because people can’t find the door,” he said. “What we’ve done is taken this conventional thing and turned it into our own spaceship.

“I think the popular song is a really powerful format for ideas. It’s a dynamic, plastic platform. It’s a trampoline that you can jump on really hard and still get great results. … If you’re going to work in that world, it’s good to bring something to it that’s adventurous.”

Flansburgh says the quirkiness of TMBG — they performed the theme song to “Malcolm in the Middle” — is just a fun way to hide more serious themes. “This band is a Trojan horse,” he said. “We’ve wrapped a very interesting package around some overly complicated ideas, and we just don’t want to be called out on it.”