Peer Validated

Modest Mouse’s “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank,” is an honest, musically heartbreaking tale of tragedy. No, I mean, really, this album is a tragedy.

Where their last release, “Good News For People Who Love Bad News,” may have only drug fans through partial disappointment, this effort makes sure to pick them back up and drag them through the full feeling, over and over again, in epic proportions.

I’ll begin by telling you what the old Modest Mouse albums are for fans like myself, since it seems that I’ll never be able to write a positive review of a Modest Mouse release ever again. The old Modest Mouse albums, the ones in the way back of our collections of records, dated somewhere between 1994 and the year 2000, have endless possibilities of sounds and emotions running through them. Sounds and emotions that somehow leave the listeners exhausted by content that hints and teases of the album’s themes. They never quite went all the way to the places, but they brought fans to the line between the places they’ve been and the places where Modest Mouse wanted them to be. This is the formula used in any indie album worth listening to for years and years after its release.

This, however, was not the formula used to create the band’s seventh full length. Isaac Brock, instead, seems to have traded in the bulk of his mystery and the best of his creativity for that one thing that that one band that used to be on the radio always used…shoot, I forget the band now. Well, when I think of it I’ll let you know.

In the past, or as I prefer to call it, the days of glory, Isaac was lonely, or sad, or angry, or whatever he was, and he seemed passionate about those feelings. In the now, or as I prefer to call it, the end of his career as an artist and the beginning of his career as a flake, Isaac seems lonely, or sad, or angry, or whatever he is, because that’s what he’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to be that crazy guy who’s yelling in his four chord pop-song about the sea. That’s just his thing, and nothing more.

Oh yeah, the 4 Non Blondes. That’s the band. You guys remember them? That song, “What’s Up.” You know, “And so I wake in the morning and I step outside, and I take I deep breathe and I get real high, and I scream from the top of my lungs, ‘What’s going on’?” Yeah, that’s the song. You just sang it to yourself didn’t you? Yeah. Oh, and it’s mediocrity, that’s the thing Isaac traded for.

And believe me, I am absolutely fascinated by the science of balancing major label exposure and radio play with artist creativity. I can’t blame Brock for playing to the exposure, or for cashing in after an already long career of hard work, but it is an absolute shame that a band who spent over a decade cutting against all other grains can change for the worst in just three short years.

And so, you can almost hear the radio DJ’s frat man voice after the fade out from “Fire It Up,” at the top of the hour, saying, “oh, there’s that crazy Modest Mouse again, Fire’n it up. And here’s the new drop from Fiddy,” or “Young Jeezy,” or whatever the hell is going on out there. Ask Will, he knows.

So, with that, I leave you the best/worst of this tragedy, “Fire It Up.” For more of the same sort of disappointment, listen to the rest of the CD.

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank