MODEST MOUSE - Good News For People Who Love Bad News

Maybe the Mouse that's crept up on us not all that timidly in recent days would do better not to paint itself so "modest". The return of the Issaquah band for the second time on a major label (Epic), after a long sabbatical journey spent chasing the perfect production between K, Up and Matador, is once again downright embarrassing... for everyone else! In the sense that it's hard to compare them to anyone else in order to convey the sheer majesty of the work. Elegant and refined, never the same twice, always ready to send you reeling...

There's this messy intro, with a trumpet that sounds like it's been rescued from the attic by chance, blown as if someone just wanted to huff into it with all their might to shake the dust out; but then "The World At Large" arrives, and at that point there's no turning back - you become part of the impressionist painting that Modest Mouse sketch in purple hues behind your back. Drifting along is the least you can do, before your heart gets wrung out to the last drop by the dreamy delicacy of Isaac Brock's voice. Then again, indifference simply isn't an option on a record like this, at least if you still consider yourself alive. And you're allowed to let yourself drop to the floor, to be stripped bare, disarmed of everything.

"Float On" is perhaps the most astonishing thing here. That this was the first single is clear right away, even without closely following the US charts. The "mice" have apparently shed that veneer that forced them to squander their immense talent, a veneer born purely out of an almost adolescent desire to stay pure and true to the line at all costs. And so this time they haven't forgotten the songs, or their love of pop, which only rarely in the past has sounded this free, unburdened by the cuts and mutilations imposed by indie "conscience". The result? A brilliant, dreamlike track, one that could give even the best Mercury Rev a run for their money: it brushes past you, coy, excessive and just redundant enough to make you hit repeat on your player over and over without a second thought.

Of course, they haven't neglected their most devoted followers either - the ones who've stuck with them since time immemorial because they loved their epileptic streak, which resurfaces on tracks like "Bury Me With It". And indeed... along with their schizophrenia, their youthful love for Pixies and Pavement resurfaces too, as the guitar strings turn more acidic, the chords more jagged and scratched.

In "The Devil's Work Day" the devil must have genuinely been met out for a stroll with some gypsy musician who kindly suggested the jarring arrangements and the crazed screams that also serve as a corollary to the theatrical falsettos of the pressing, Eastern-tinged episode that is "Satin In A Coffin".

"Dance Hall" is the unexploded mine, ready to turn into a stray shrapnel fragment the moment you put your foot on it (or rather, your ear), and it sounds as though it emerged, as if by magic, from a session with a young Tom Waits. "Bukowski" is a small, chanted homage set to a banjo rhythm, which introduces us to the second part of the record, the more intimate and harrowing one.

"Blame It On The Tetons" perhaps has an unintentional purpose at this point, as if placed there to convince you that this is the record you needed to get clean, since it carries within it those calm, reassuring whispers.

We're now at the bottom of the record, having scraped out everything there was to scrape, but there's still time for the astonishing "Black Cadillacs", which has one of those choruses you'd been waiting to sing for ages, for the romantic slowness of "One Chance", and for the prophetic, springlike "The Good Times Are Killing Me".

In short, perhaps it would be wise to leave a piece of cheese outside your front door, just to lure them in, since their songs, for now, remain "good news".

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

12/12/2006