Modest Mouse Make Modest EP Modestly
Venerable Indie Rock Veterans Offer Solid B-Sides Collection
Modest Mouse
No One's First, and You're Next
Released on Aug 04, 2009
Modest Mouse’s No One’s First And You’re Next, an EP comprised of B-sides from previous releases Good News for People Who Love Bad News and We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, is not an album that’s going to particularly surprise anyone. This is not to suggest that the album is bad (it’s not) or that it’s not interesting (it most certainly is). But if, between the critical acclaim of 2000’s The Moon & Antarctica, the out-of-nowhere success of anthemic Good News… single “Float On”, or the chart-topping Modest Marr effort We Were Dead…, No One’s First And You’re Next is not going to be the album that draws you in to the Modest Mouse cult of fandom. Isaac Brock’s lyrics are still half-mumbled, half-spat. The guitar sound is still warbly and atonal, the ever-present quarter-step bend providing the distinct Modest Mouse sound. As should be expected with a B-sides album, we’ve heard this particular iteration of the band before.
Except we haven’t. Or, more
specifically, we haven’t heard this particular version of Modest Mouse
in quite some time. The thing that makes No One’s First…
such an intriguing collection is the insight it provides into the kind
of music Brock & Co. chose not to offer as part of their
most commercially successful releases. Good News… and We Were Dead… were the Modest Mouse equivalent of pop albums,
keeping to traditional verse-chorus song structures, loading up on danceable
(See: “Dashboard”, “The View”) or anthemic (See: “Float On”,
“We’ve Got Everything”) or just plain pretty tunes (See: “World
at Large”, “Blame it on the Tetons”), while minimizing the drug-addled
spaciness, paranoia, and general desolate feel that permeated their
indie-rock opus, The Moon & Antarctica.
While No One’s First…
maintains a portion of the newfound lyrical optimism (or at least what
I’m interpreting as optimism) Brock showcased on the previous two
albums, the general sound and overall feel leans more toward the darker Moon & Antarctica. “King Rat” and “The Whale Song” in
particular owe a heavy debt to the 2000 release, using the same open
structure and tonal complexity that made Moon tracks like “Alone
Down There” and “Life Like Weeds” so unique and interesting.
On the whole, the EP is a mixed
bag of influences, though most all are strong enough to have found their
way onto previous releases. “Satellite Skin” can hold its own as
one of the great Modest Mouse album openers, successfully blending a
melody reminiscent (for reasons I have yet to figure out) of Moon opener “3rd Planet” with Brock’s trademark grumble
and “half-a-millimeter-away-from-being-out-of-tune” guitar whine.
And “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” is one of those songs that only Modest
Mouse can seem to put together, layering chiming guitar drone-tones
under Brock’s rhythmic rap-spittle. It’s a bubbling stew of ugly
sounds that are strangely, entrancingly pretty when all put together.
All in all, while not everything
on No One’s First And You’re Next may be essential listening,
there are a few tracks (see: “Satellite Skin”, “King Rat”, “Guilty
Cocker Spaniels”) that certainly make a listener wonder how they ended
up on a B-sides album instead of tracks like “Fire it Up” or “Dance
Hall”. Thankfully, their presence here, catalogued next to a slew
of solid (if not life-changing) offerings makes No One’s First what seems to me the ultimate rarity in modern music: a B-sides album
that’s rewarding, relevant, filler-free, and very worth checking out.
High Point
Nobody frontloads an album quite like Modest Mouse, and No One’s First And You’re Next is no exception. “Satellite Skin”, “Guilty Cocker Spaniels”, and “Autumn Beds” are simply Modest Mouse doing what they do best.
Low Point
The fact that I had to give this a 7 instead of a 7.5 like I really wanted to. Let it be a lesson kids: the man will always bring you down.
Posted by David Sitrick on Aug 04, 2009 @ 6:00 am
