 |
|
|
|
Modest Mouse - ARIZONA - SOLD OUT
w/ Mimicking Birds, Japanese Motors
When: 2/25/2009 6:30 PM
|
Isaac Brock's impertinent squawk is the cry of an outsider who, as the title of this Issaquah, Washington, indie-rock band's best album suggests, is at his loneliest in a crowd. From the first meandering arpeggio of the band's debut album, Modest Mouse sounds unmistakable -- Brock's double-tracked guitars and Eric Judy's loose-lined bass forge seemingly accidental harmonies from their independent chatter until Jeremiah Green's drums insistently pound these goings-on into a constancy that resembles riffs. The only thing that could improve The Lonesome, Crowded West would be if the wired, dejected "Doin' the Cockroach" really was their emo-dance-craze answer to the Macarena. On The Moon & Antarctica (cold and desolate, get it?), Brock drops cosmic burnout science, such as "The universe is shaped exactly like the earth/If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were," like that's enough reason to postpone the voyage and fire up the bong, while the band gestures occasionally toward prog-leaning atmospherics. A pack rat till the end, Modest Mouse has accumulated two collections of rarities and B sides: The snippets on Sucker are abbreviated and petulant; the ruminations on Building Nothing are sprawling and uncertain; and both are of a piece -- as if the most perverse act these devout pessimists could envision in the face of the void was to make even their trash consistent in quality.
Good News for People Who Like Bad News was an improbable chart success that showed Modest Mouse could polish their delivery without changing their outlook one bit. The textures are brighter and the instrumentation more diverse on an impressive series of outcast anthems, from the unironically bouncy single "Float On," to the Tom Waits-y rural-blues squall of "This Devil's Work Day," to typically verbose and cutting rants like "Black Cadillacs" and "Bury Me With It." It's not the Modest Mouse older fans had come to love, but it proved that Brock was still a talented sad sack set against a current of booze, laughing at the world with a butter knife always to his throat. (KEITH HARRIS)
|
|