The Tortoise and the Tourist

I don’t quite remember what my initial reaction to Strangers to Ourselves was in 2015, besides just being exited for a new Modest Mouse album after a long hiatus. I think I might have said something like ‘it sounds like every other Modest Mouse album’. …

Tiny Cities Made of Ashes

It’s validating to see the growing consensus that The Moon & Antarctica is one of the greatest albums of the millennium so far, but I could have told you that years ago. Modest Modest provided a soundtrack for the post-millennial years that was very different …

This Devil’s Workday

Am I the only one who sees the irony of the weirdness and the popularity of Good News For People Who Love Bad News? Popularity despite weirdness isn’t unheard of, and it’s fair to say that it offers more on-ramps than any previous Modest Mouse …

Sugar Boats

Enjoy the coming together of two strands of creative weirdness. Some internet genius thought to mash up a 2015 Modest Mouse song with the 1931 Max Fleischer cartoon Bimbo’s Initiation, and it’s as though the two were always meant to be together. It’s unofficial, of …

Strangers to Ourselves

The image of an American housing subdivision, laid out in geometric fractals in a mockery of nature, is a universal symbol of social conformity and spiritual stuntedness. When you see that image on the cover of a new album, you know you’re in for a …

The Stars are Projectors

When I say that The Moon & Antarctica is one of the defining albums of my young adulthood, I know that dates me, and I’ve come to terms with that, although it’s odd to find myself experiencing generational solidarity. But I’m hardly exaggerating when I …

Spitting Venom

I’m continually trying to wrap my head around the reality that Modest Mouse has become a generational object of nostalgia, because the 2000’s are now more than a decade removed and the OG emo kids are all middle aged now. I’m also bothered that on …

Shit in Your Cut

Crude title aside, this is classic Modest Mouse. And since being tetchy and asocial is kind of Isaac Brock’s whole thing, persona-wise, the crude title just ties into the big picture anyway. Modest Mouse has always been music for the slightly maladjusted. Life might rub …

Satin in a Coffin

This is as good a facsimile of a Tom Waits song that anyone has ever recorded, and ‘fake Tom Waits’ is almost its own genre. That’s a compliment. Modest Mouse has managed to get some hit songs on the radio, but deep – or not …

Pups to Dust

“We don’t belong here, we were just born here” This kind of angst is exactly what we go to Modest Mouse for. Feeling slightly displaced in the world has been their grand theme from the beginning. It doesn’t seem to be getting any better with …