SOME FEW DRUNKEN THOUGHTS ON THE NEW MODEST MOUSE ALBUM
Tracks 1-6
(Horn Intro / The World At Large / Float On / Ocean Breathes Salty / Dig Your Grave / Bury Me With It)
I can't think of a single bad thing to say about this stretch of tunes, aside from the uneasy "Is this prog-rock???" freakout triggered by that Tull-esque woodwind line on "The World At Large." By the end, though, you find it sounds more like a feedback squeal, so it's okay to like it without irony.
This stretch of songs could win me over on lyrics alone:
"The moths beat themselves to death against the lights / Adding their breeze to the summer nights."
"We'll all float on OK."
"For your sake I hope heaven and hell are really there, but I wouldn't hold my breath / You wasted life, why wouldn't you waste death?"
"We were shootin' at a mound of dirt / Well nothing was broken, nothing was hurt / But I probably should have been at work."
Track 7
(Dance Hall)
This track is good for dancing to and singing along to in a demented Beavis voice. Other than that, I could do without it.
Track 8
(Bukowski)
This track has its moments, but really, after 3 listenings it comes off as a Moon & Antarctica-esque take on Life & God that didn't make the cut -- too obvious and half-baked. The inquiry "Who'd wanna be such a control freak?" just doesn't hit me as hard, philosophically, as "It takes a long time, but God dies too / But not before he'll stick it to you."
Track 9
(This Devil's Workshop)
Modest Mouse does well enough sounding like Modest Mouse. There's no documented need for Isaac Brock to start sounding like Tom Waits. That said, I do like the lyrics.
Track 10
(The View)
Ooh, a song about conflicting property rights that sounds like Led Zeppelin's "The Crunge"? You fuckin' know this hits my Top 10. It's got a classic Talking Heads feel, what with the obtuse, maybe-you-know-what-he's-on-about lyrics crossed with happy disco beats. Plus, "we are fixed right where we stand" may well keep me up nights.
Tracks 11-13
With "Satin In a Coffin", the album begins to regain its footing, even as it continues to raise questions about who Isaac Brock might actually want dead. Am I the only one who hears a musical companion to OutKast's "Dracula's Wedding" in this track? Probably.
After that, the lyrics begin to get cloudy:
"Blame It On The Tetons"
Believe me, I'd like to. "They might get a little better air if they turned themselves into a cloud," says Brock. Maybe. But how many 7th-graders want to do that?
"Black Cadillacs"
"And it's true that the clouds just hung around like black Cadillacs outside a funeral / And we were laughing at the stars while our feet clung tight to the ground . . . "
That couple of lines is pretty one of a kind.
"One Chance"
"I'm just a box in a cage." Jesus, that's even worse than a rat in a cage. I hope things work out.
"The Good Times Are Killing Me"
As far as anti-drug singalongs go, I rather like this.
All in all, a decent album, though far more "confessional" than I might have demanded. While it doesn't leave the listener with the same "transformed" feeling they might have after cruising through The Moon & Antarctica on headphones . . . it still does get to you.
B+
COMMENT!
Posted by FLOG at April 7, 2004 2:15 AM | TrackBackBlog:
1) I have heard Built To Spill a few times since converting to Mousehood, and I heard nothing that I want to hear again. In addition, I'm relying on your advice, as He Who Got Me To Like Modest Mouse. You told me Built To Spill ain't worth my time, and I took your word for it. If you want to try to change me now, well, lay it on my, jack. At the very least it'll make a good doggy toy.
2) Is Good News worth buying? Well, I bought it. But I get the feeling you and I differ on the "worth buying" question, so I'm not sure how to answer. This might help you decide:
If The Moon and Antarctica was "Modest Mouse does OK Computer," then in many respects Good News is "Modest Mouse does Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," with this fitting distinction: where Jeff Tweedy spent an album obsessing about his inability to be honest in a relationship, Isaac Brock spends his album wishing for the death and burial of either himself, his Minnie Mouse, or perhaps all of humanity.
Posted by: FLOG™ at April 7, 2004 3:52 AMArgh! I'm late for the party! Well, it's nice to hear music I got into years back finally gaining acceptance (among people with penises, apparently).
Just got my "Good News" today on account of a previously-depleted bank account. I'm in the middle of my second-through right now, and so far I like what Dan says, though I'm less sold on the second half of the record. Though I do like Bukowski. And the last track is great -- the Flaming Lips' work on the track is unmistakable.
To be sure, it's like a proggy version of LCW, not so much like M&A. At all.
It gets a B- from me right now, but I never like anything fully the first time or two through. I reserve the right to raise that letter grade as high as I later decide.
Posted by: WWB at April 7, 2004 5:08 AMJust because I know Bill will read this and die a little: I DELETED ALL THE MODEST MOUSE FROM THE OFFICE COMPUTERS! ALL OF IT! Take that Modest Mouse!
Posted by: Timmentator at April 7, 2004 8:40 AMTrouble is, you probably replaced it with Fleetwood Mac. You diabolical bastard.
Posted by: FLOG at April 7, 2004 9:00 AMWhat ever happened to your solid hatred for Modest Mouse, FLOG? I remeber sitting with you at the Plantation listening to Bill's Lonesome Crowded West while you derisively complained about it being indiscernible from Built to Spill. What gives?
FLOG™ replies: First of all, peas, I apologize for intruding on your comment here -- kind of creepy, huh? -- but Movable Type apparently thinks I've commented enough today and is blocking me from my own site for 24 hours.Posted by: eatyourdamnpeas at April 7, 2004 9:24 AMOkay. My answer to your query:
To quote The Guess Who:
Seasons change, and so did IWhoops, got carried away there. Only the first line is pertinent. What happened was last year I was pestering Brandon to no end about a particular Neil Young album, and in revenge he laid "Lonesome Crowded West" on me. This time around, I liked it. And now I'm something of a rabid fan.
You need not wonder why - hy
You need not wonder why - hy
You need not wonder why - hy hy hy
No time! No time! No time! No time!
No time for the killing floor!For the record, my hate for Built to Spill is still deep and unshakeable. I can now tell the difference.
You're damn right I replaced it with Fleetwood Mac. Also, Fountains of Wayne.
Posted by: Timmentator at April 7, 2004 9:49 AMI remember playing Moon and Antarctica at Danang one night. It burned your hears and you turned it off during that song about Coca Cola. Since you've done a complete 180 on MM, why not give Built to Spill another try?
Lemme also ask you this: is Good News an album worth buying? I'll hear all the songs on Friday at the Crystal. Maybe I should just make up my own damn mind for my own damn self.
Posted by: Blog at April 7, 2004 11:48 AMTimmentator, don't stop thinking about tomorrow. And watch those landslides.
Posted by: Blog at April 8, 2004 10:08 AMFurther thoughts: FLOG says the album is "far more "confessional" than I might have demanded," and surely it is in places, but altogether I think it's substantially less so than M&A -- where the "concept" was internal soul-searching, contemplation of death and a life lived, etc. You don't get more confessional than "my mom she is a witch" or "No one really knows the ones they love / If you knew everything they thought I bet you'd wish that they'd just shut up."
Instead, Brock goes back to storytelling. Maybe that's Cowboy Dan out there defending his plot of land in "The View."
Lyrically, GNFPWLBN (try to pronounce that!) is more outward-directed, and so I have to defend "Bukowski" a bit more on that -- questions such as "who'd wanna be such a control freak?" aren't philosophical, they're frustrated laments about an idol who as a person doesn't deserve your adulation.
And if there's any track on the album that seems an outtake from M&A, it's The World At Large -- "If the world's at large, why should I remain? Walked away to another plan. Gonna find another place, maybe one I can stand" seems to sum up the first half of the last album, a cross between "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes" and "Paper Thin Walls." But I still like it.
Grade as of now: B and rising -- individual A's, a few C's. I'm still having a hard time as seeing this as a coherent album.
Posted by: WWB at April 9, 2004 11:37 AMI'm still waiting on my copy. Don't try to help or anything; the stupid thing's been paid for, so it ought to be in the mail somewhere... I've got a lot to look forward to after that review, but I really don't expect them to ever top, "Goes to the desert, fires a rifle in the sky, & screams 'God! If I have to die, you will have to die-huh-high-huh-high!'"
Posted by: bryan at April 14, 2004 4:53 AM