“Coyotes” is very effective in cooling things down for a bit before things start to speed up again. The second half of the album is even more noteworthy. One thing about this track still throws me off, though, and it’s the processing on Brock’s vocals heard in a few spots. Its riff is a welcomed callback to The Moon & Antarctica, and the seemingly disco-inspired groove of the track later on is new, but not terribly unsettling. Next, we have “The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box” and although it caught me off guard upon its release as a single, I soon grew to appreciate it quite a bit. This sort of personal, emotionally charged story telling was always a staple of Modest Mouse, and it’s great to see it back again. Brock muses, “the last time that you ever see another soul/No, you never get to know/No, you don’t know,” as the song comes to an abrupt close. After “Pistol” ends, “Ansel” begins with Brock shouting “here we go!” He then launches into a story inspired by the death of his brother, referred to under the pseudonym Ansel for this track. The record immediately begins to redeem itself, however. A heavily modulated voice barely recognizable as Brock slurs about how he’s going to show up to work tomorrow “not ready for the meeting” because he was up all night “tak your shirt right on off,” and “zip your pants on down.” Meant as a story about the early whereabouts of the aforementioned Andrew Cunanan, or, more accurately, the view the media had of him - but to me, it still doesn’t make “Pistol” anything more or less than the strangest, weakest thing Modest Mouse may have ever put on a record. Kicking off with a beat better suited for an electropop group such as CHVRCHES, it stands out grossly, not only in this record, but in the entire discography of the group. The first song to really catch my attention was “Pistol,” but I mean that in the worst way possible. in Your Cut” is a pretty strong track, especially in its second half, but Brock’s lyricism, usually quite thought-provoking, came off as a bit random and nonsensical at times: “when the doctor finally showed up/his fur was soaking wet/he said that this should do the trick/we hadn’t told him what the problem was yet!” The album’s first single, “Lampshades on Fire”, is on par with the strongest tracks from We Were Dead. The opener was so far from Modest Mouse’s usual “guns-blazing” approach to opening a record that it initially seemed weak and uninspired. Go into it as I did, and Strangers will kick off with a lot to be asked for. Later tracks, such as “Pistol” and “The Ground Walks, With Time in a Box,” even draw influences from dance music.
The title track and opener is an uncharacteristic slow burner of a song that features a string section.
#Modest mouse albums zip serial#
We have evil intent like serial killer Andrew Cunanan, we fear wildlife when we’re the ones destroying their homes, and we’re crammed into overpopulated cities where we become “strangers to ourselves.” This new album, (which Brock admits he poured so much money and effort into he almost ended up out on the streets) is possibly the most diverse record the band has put out to date. “Giant old monsters, afraid of the sharks!” It’s this kind of cynicism towards the human race that laid the foundation for Modest Mouse from the start. “Mankind’s behavin’ like some serial killer,” notes Isaac Brock on Modest Mouse’s first album since 2007’s We Were Dead before the Ship Even Sank, perhaps their weakest release yet.
HIGHLIGHTS: Be Brave, Pups to Dust, The Tortoise & the Tourist, The Best Room
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