the eighth nerve: July 2004

Rating: 7.5

The idea that something is wrong with everything all the time but there’s not much you can do about it is frustrating. I like to think the best sort of cynicism finds its teeth in this; that one would be more than willing to take responsibility for all of this if he or she thought it would make a difference, but since it clearly wouldn’t he or she is happy to share the burden with the rest of us. Call it egalitarian guilt.

The spreading of responsibility seems to be a founding principle of Modest Mouse, and certainly part of their live shows where you are as likely to be verbally assaulted by the guy you just paid $22.50 to see as you are to get an earful of top-notch noise pop. In fact you can pretty much count on both. Songs swell and skitter until everyone is jumping up and down toward the brink while singer / indie-rock icon Isaac Brock gets progressively more and more pissed at you, or maybe himself, for something. Everything. Whatever. It may help to tell yourself that the taunts and expletives coming from onstage are meant for the jackass in the backward baseball cap standing in front of you shouting “Cowboy Dan! Play Cowboy Dan Mutherfucker!” while trying to start a mosh pit with some very unimpressed lesbians (Bimbo’s 365, San Francisco, February 28, 2002), but that would be naïve. It’s meant for all of us and we have it coming.

And that’s what’s always been so great about Modest Mouse. They are not shy about voicing their frustrations with things internal and external to themselves, then sharing the blame, ire even, with you and me. Of course it’s easy to get excited about Brock’s oft celebrated though arguable musical genius and predilection for writing songs about cars. What has always attracted me to their music are primarily the voice and guitars, a reliable tandem perfectly tuned and pitched for a night of disgruntled drinking – but there is also the guilty pleasure of listening to a band which seems to perpetually hover on the edge of a mild psychotic episode, veering over from time to time for a better view of whatever lies beyond.

Like a celebrity car crash, you can hear the band’s collective mind ping and groan as it bends to understand our shortcomings in the face of God, death, and strip malls. While it may occasionally push the band’s sound to foreign, screechy places, such a perilous vantage point can provide valuable perspective, honed crystal clear by a fear of falling into oblivion.

There exists a latent promise of ugly emotional demonstration or even physical harm in the play between Brock’s addled romance with language and his melodic delivery which lilts from plaintive, self-defeatist monologue to a siren’s urgent wail. With a rhythm section that sounds alternately fueled by boiling kerosene and Quaaludes and guitars that rise, teeter and chaff one another into flaming anthems, Modest Mouse made their mark with “This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About” and “The Lonesome, Crowded West”, creating jagged pop/rock landscapes for cheated hearts at the beginning of the end of the world.

Then came “The Moon and Antarctica,” their fourth LP (first for new label Epic). Here they (the band, the label, both?) found a way to harness Brock’s smart, churlish edge and all the doomsday freak-out energy of their earlier albums and focus it into a solid opus of guitar driven rock complete with as many hooks as there are references to parking lots and dogs. It was pretty well received by critics and fans, myself included, for its more accessible tone and still toothy content. The label even deemed it important enough to reissue just two years after its initial release (wha?). Some die hard Mousers saw “Antarctica” as a watering-down of what put the band on the map, trading the keening din of guitars and danceable chaos for gentler harmonies and a more familiar pop groove. In this sense “Good News for People Who Love Bad News” picks up right where “Antarctica” left off.

“Good News” opens with a brief harbinger of things you’ll hear mid-disc, so file “Horn Intro” away and then consider the first notes of “The World at Large.” The song sounds as if it might have been plucked from material left on “Antarctica’s” cutting room floor, omitted because it seemed too optimistic. In fact, it’s hard to imagine not being drawn in by the reassuring, summery pop of “ The World…” and “Float On,” the albums opening tracks. The second of the two comes complete with a clap-and-shout along chorus which insists, in so many words, that we’ll all be okay “even if things get a bit too heavy… alright.” After just one listen I feel like I will be all right, I will float on with the bang-stomp beat in my heart and a crooked smile on my face. All right.

The sunny reassurance of “Float On” is balanced by the traditional nihilism we’ve come to expect from the band in numbers like “Dig Your Grave,” “Satin in a Coffin,” and “Bukowski,” which not only references the beat generation’s dirtiest old man by name but in growling, spluttering tones channeled through Tom Waits' coffee cup. This experimental growl accompanied by side-show horns and a banjo lend a bacon-fat greasiness to the lyrics where guitars and drums fade in importance. When called upon, the more staple instruments of rock-n-roll seem somehow gentler, bouncier and played as if to summon Siouxsie Sioux and Robert Smith to supper, or at least for a cocktail. The shift away from bombast and into Billboard’s top 40 seems to coincide with a more personal bent in Brock’s writing. Not that he wasn’t taking shit personally before, but maybe now he’s not being as hard on himself. Probably a healthy thing for the guy, and if it’s selling records, even better.

Sure, The Mouse can sizzle and spark, and here it does at times, but this album plays more like afternoon Lowenbrau than midnight crank. There is never a sense of things nearing critical mass. Modest Mouse still paints a bleak picture of the future we’re doomed to create for ourselves, complete with peaks, valleys, used cars and wasted time. They are at their best playing the angry, infectious anthems of soon-to-be-curmudgeons and armchair prophets who still have the energy to kick and scream and shake their tiny fists to the beat. “Good News” softens some edges without pulling punches, and offers up the ray of hope that comes with age; knowing that if things aren’t the way you hoped at least it will all be over soon enough.

the eighth nerve

LIST: Car Songs, Vol. 3

REVIEW: Modest Mouse "Good News for People Who Love Bad News"

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