MODEST MOUSE - An Eraser And A Maze

After so many years with a guitar in hand treading the indie stages of the whole world, what could Isaak Brock still have to say? Will he still enjoy playing indie rock and repeating the same old formulas? The tenth record from his Modest Mouse answers these questions positively right from the incipit – "We've been eating our own/ We've been eating our young/ We've been eating our own young" – returning to self-production, carrying on the fruitful streak of mature songwriting from "The Golden Casket" (Epic, 2021) and honoring the passing of longtime drummer Jeremiah Green.
"An Eraser And A Maze" is ultimately a synthesis of the band's most brilliant compositional and arrangement solutions, now based in Portland, spanning breezier, more irreverent tracks ("Picking Dragon's Pockets"), overly groovy ballads ("Remember Yourself"), catchy rock riffs à-la "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" ("Life's A Dream") and irreverent cuts à-la "The Lonesome Crowded West" ("Speak And Spell [Or Note]", "Rotten Fruit").

These formulas resurface and intertwine throughout the album, enriched by clever arrangement touches – like the choir on the ballad "Third Side of the Moon", the double register of the folk/rock march "Dogbed In Heaven/ Give It A Skeleton" and the whistling gang on "Rotten Fruit" – alongside existential, at times fatalistic reflections ("Knocked down by waves/ Well, I'm not just any door, I'm an open door who won't close no more").
Delightful is the instrumental passage of "Interlude" leading into "I Cant' Talk Right Now", one of the album's most original and successful tracks in the way it blends tones and genre tropes, as are the riffs and new wave rhythmic figures of "Absolutely Necessary Never", which recall other stylistic trajectories within the indie sphere such as "Reflektor" by Arcade Fire, "Song About Nothing" and "Look How Far", complete with the classic smudges and grotesque notes that characterize the music of Brock and co., enriched by Janet Weiss's drumming.

In this same vein, the album closes with "Impossibile Someday", a wave and indie song whose unison riff sounds like a tribute to The Cure of the 2000s. So yes, Modest Mouse still seem to be having fun and, above all, still make us have fun, inviting us to take ourselves less seriously during our "second age" of life and very seriously in the recording studio, where they remain masterful producers of the most eclectic indie sound.

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04/08/2026