Don't Be Strangers: Reviewing Modest Mouse's First Album In 8 Years

Modest Mouse

Somewhere around thirteen years ago, I was hearing a lot of hype about Modest Mouse.  A lot of Hollywood A-list celebrities like Elijah Wood and Heath Ledger were raving about them.  So I decided to check them out.  In a CD shop in Enfield, Connecticut, I purchased their third album, "The Moon & Antarctica".  I hated it.  First of all, Issac Brock's voice was for shit, resorting to growling most of the time.  Plus the music was discordant and grating, slurred and stumbled like it was drunk.  I couldn't stand it.  Over the next year, I would pull it out occasionally listen to it.  I was mad that I spent money on a CD that I hated.  Surprisingly, after several listens, it clicked for me.  I didn't know what it was, but I suddenly loved it.  It had a Dada-esque quality about it.  Plus, I could hear some bands in their that I liked - fellow Pacific Northwest psychedelic band, Sky Cries Mary, but mostly the "Big Sex" EP by Wolfgang Press.  In fact, I still hear that when I listen to it.

So I went out to purchase their fourth album, "Good News For People Who Hate Bad News", which continued on their previous sound, but added a hodge podge of other experiments to create a swirl of sounds that made them one of the most unique bands on the planet at the time - dance hall, New Orleans jazz, folk, bluegrass.  This album incredible back then, and it still is now.  This record was their breakthrough, and with reason.  I can't rave enough about it.

If their fourth record was great,  their fifth album was their masterpiece.  "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" is, hands down, the best Modest Mouse record.  They continued doing what they do best - making energetic, danceable rock songs with sarcastic lyrics.  Not only did they have some awesome guest musicians, like James Mercer of The Shins, but they actually solicited Johnny Marr, a founding former member of The Smiths, to join the band.  I have since come to the opinion that Johnny Marr, not so much Morrissey, was the driving force behind The Smiths, and it showed when Marr joined Modest Mouse.  His guitar danced and flitted through every song, adding a dimension to the music that it never had before.

After the album and subsequent tour, Johnny Marr finished his stint with the band and went on to his solo projects.  But what do you do after you make the perfect album?  With the perfect guitarist?  Apparently, Modest Mouse must have asked themselves the same question, because - apart from one EP - they didn't release another album for eight years.  I'm not sure why.

Strangers To Ourselves

But they were right.  "Strangers To Ourselves" is the sixth Modest Mouse album to date.  And it will never be as good as "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank", but it's still a pretty damn good album.

The album starts with  the dreamy title track, "Strangers To Ourselves" with Brock's soft vocals set to an orchestral arrangement and rubbery guitars.  Then the pace picks up with "Lampshades On Fire", the most typical Mouse song on here with groovy guitars and an infectious beat.  Probably my favorite song on here. "Shit In Your Cut" and "Pistol (A. Cunanan, Miami, FL. 1996)" experiment with different percussive rhythms while introducing electronic elements to the music.  "Ansel" has a calypso, Caribbean feel to it, yet manages to remain somber.  "The Ground Walks, with Time In a Box" starts the frenzy anew, and I love the ending where all the components of the song unlace, leaving a few electronic blips.  "Coyotes" is a subdued and melancholy waltz about the true story of a coyote who rode the light rail train in Portland.  "Pups To Dust" is fairly unremarkable, if not mildly pleasant while "Sugar Boats" is a trippy romp, all out cabaret, with the ending collapsing into aggressive guitars.

It's funny that my former wife once said that The Killers reminded her of Modest Mouse, particularly Brandon Flower's tremulous voice.  Ironically, "Wicked Campaign" sounds just like a Killers' song.  "Be Brave" is another waltz, but this one is full of rage.  "God Is an Indian and You're An Asshole" is a country-western piece full of Mouse's caustic humor, and "The Tortoise and the Tourist" is a fairly annoying, overly cloying song.  "The Best Room" is fairly stereotypical of this band's songs, a little boring, but the record finishes of with a bang with the ethereal "Of Course We Know".

So Modest Mouse is back after all these years, and with a really good album.  I would expect no less from them.  Hopefully, we will not have to wait as long for the next one.

Talk About Our Generation: Review of Johnny Marr's "The Messenger"

Johnny Marr

Earlier this year, I watched Johnny Marr perform a couple of songs on Jimmy Fallon.  He performed "Generate! Generate!" from his new solo album, and then he did a exquisite rendition of The Smith's "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" that made me realize something that I had never considered.  But I will get to that in a moment.

How do I describe what The Smiths meant to me?  I had a friend, Melisa back when I was 16.  There are two people from my youth in the '80s who introduced me to more music than anyone else, and Melisa was one of them.  She always knew who the up and coming musicians were.  She always dressed in black, and my mother used to call her "The Black Widow".  At the end of 1985, she lent me a couple of records on vinyl.  One was The Stranglers.  The other was the eponymous album by The Smiths.  No one else even knew who The Smiths were.  Within a year and a half, "The Queen Is Dead" exploded onto the alternative scene (a term we didn't even know back then.)  "The Queen Is Dead" became our banner - jangle pop guitars delivered by Johnny Marr, and vocals dripping with semi-sarcastic lyrics by the suave Morrissey.  There is no way to describe what this music meant to me as an angst-ridden youth.  It perfectly reflected how I felt and how I viewed life.  And then almost as quickly as they came into my life, they were gone.  They broke up.

MTV's 120 Minutes was filled with Morrissey's solo efforts.  But honestly, none of it ever spoke to me.  I know that there are people that hang on Moz's every word, every drip of sweat from his now-bloated face.  But I have always found his solo stuff pretentious and stuffy.  Morrissey has become an icon, not an artist.

I never heard much about what Johnny Marr was doing until he linked up with one of my favorite bands, Modest Mouse, in 2006.  Now, this was a band that I already liked.  But the album he recorded with them, "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank", was explosive.  It's hard to explain how much better Marr made Modest Mouse than they were before.  I was sad when he left.

So back to Marr's performance on Jimmy Fallon.  His version of "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" was even better than the original, if that is possible.  How do you make the perfect song even better than it was before?  It was then that I realized something - that the true creative genius was Johnny Marr  Yes, Morrissey added a lot.  But it is any wonder that the band collapsed after Marr left in 1987?  He was the spark that made everything work.

And this point is proven again in Johnny Marr's solo album, "The Messenger".

Anyone expecting another Smiths album - leave that notion at the proverbial door.  Sure, there are a few elements, a few moments where it reminds me of The Smiths.  But that is where it ends.  This album gyrates furiously.  It is definitely a guitar-driven rock album, and Marr shows that age and time have not slowed him down at all.  These songs will seize you, stare you in the face, and not let go until you are convinced of their relevance.

The album starts great with "The Right Thing Right" with a pounding beat and heavy bass groove.  The guitar scratches out a danceable cadence.  My wife even points out that Marr has a great voice.  He makes the transition from saw man to front man with ease.  He was born for this.  "I Want the Heartbeat" and "Sun & Moon" go right into a full-frontal attack that would make Deep Purple proud.  My favorite songs are the catchy "European Me", "Generate! Generate!", and the subdued "Say Demesne".  "New Town Velocity" is also one of my preferred songs, maybe because it has a The Church vibe.

I am well pleased with Johnny Marr's solo effort.  He has proven his point.  He is a guitar god.  He is a song-writing genius.  He has everything that made The Smiths great.  Even still, patch your shit up with Morrissey and bring back one last tour with Moz and the gang.  Thanks.

My Desert Island Top 10

There was a beautiful Tower Records store in Tempe right next to Arizona State University.  (Remember Tower Records??)  I sunk many a dollar there.  Every time you made a purchase, you were allowed to take a free issue of their in-store magazine - Pulse.  Every month, there was a section where readers picked their Desert Island Top 10.

The premise is this - if you were stuck on a desert island, but you had a chance to have with you ten albums, which albums would you pick?

This is always a tough one for me, because my top 10 invariably becomes my top 30.  I made a rule for myself that I could not list any band that I have previously reviewed on my blog.  So albums like Pixies' "Doolittle", anything by Cocteau Twins or Dead Can Dance will obviously not be on this list.

I also invite YOU to post your top 10.  You can know a lot about a person by the music that they like.  It is always interesting to see what music people like.

So here it goes, in no particular order:

1.  Avenged Sevenfold "Avenged Sevenfold" - This album represented to me a return to metal.  I belonged to a hotel renovation crew that worked all over the country, and, during our cross-country drives, we would always settled on Sirius's Octane station.  This was when I was first introduced to this band.  My daughter bought me this album for Christmas in 2007, and my next job took me to Albuquerque.  It was a cold January, and this album was on constant rotation on my mp3 player.  I have since acquired their entire catalog.  I think the thing that I have always liked about this band is that they remind me of one of my early favorites - Iron Maiden.  Just like Iron Maiden, this band has a flare for the theatrical - with their music ranging from Bible quotes to evoking Hunter S Thompson.  This album is no different.  From the Spaghetti Western "Gunslinger" (which reminds me of an episode of "Firefly") to the country twang of "Dear God".  My favorite track is the "A Little Piece of Heaven" which is obviously an homage to Danny Elfman.  It is a twisted piece complete with nightmarish orchestra that tells of a man who murders his woman.  Her corpse comes to life and exacts revenge, they forgive each other, and had a wedding in hell.  It was written by the Rev, the band's drummer who died tragically in 2009.  A7X is releasing a new album next month (which I will review).  It will be their first album written without the aid of the Rev.  It will be interesting to see how this album will emerge.

2.  The Church "Starfish" - The Church is one of several psychedelic, '60s-influenced jangle-pop bands that came out in the '80s.  But they are one of the bands that has had lasting influence on me.  This entire album is nostalgic, and, in particular, "Under the Milkyway", which is still a sort of personal theme to me.  The entire album is good, and the opening track, "Destination" is haunting, the lyrics having special meaning to me.  "Reptile" is an excellent guitar-driven song.  This whole album was written with nostalgia in mind.  Steve Kilbey wrote a poem that was included in the liner notes.  Here a part of it that sums up how I feel about this album:

Good, now and forever music reach and awakens

Swimming in the shallow end, down, down, remember

A need, a gnawing longing for what?

3.  Coldplay "X&Y" - Yes, I like Coldplay.  Thanks to "The 40 Year-Old Virgin", I must defend my heterosexuality every time I say that I like them.  Actually, I don't know how anyone could not like them.  Their songs are beautifully crafted and deliciously layered.  This is a band that I hope keeps putting out great albums, because every release has been spectacular.  I owned "Rush of Blood to the Head", but it was "X&Y" that sealed the proverbial deal, for me.  It was Father's Day in 2005, and my wives gifted me this album.  I took it with me to San Diego to do a particularly stressful hotel job.  This album was my only reprieve, parking at Ocean Beach, listening to this album over and over.  I love it all - the emotive ballads "What If" and "Fix You", the R.E.M.-inspired "The Hardest Part", and multi-faceted "Talk".  I can still listen to this album and not get sick of it.

4.  System of a Down "Mezmerize", "Hypnotize" -  Okay, this is cheating, because it's really two albums.  But they were released six months apart and are part of the same concept.  This is a band that I loved from the first time I heard them, and they have remained a favorite.  They are part Dead Kennedys, part Frank Zappa, and part Armenian folk music - and this is about the best and most accurate description I could give them.  Hard-driving guitars interspersed with the the quavering voices of Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian ("Killing Rock N Roll", "Stealing Society", and "Revenga") mixed with political satire (B.Y.O.B.", "Violent Pornography", "Sad Statue"), the absurd ("This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I'm On This Song", "Vicinity of Obscenity"), the obscene ("Cigarro"), the sad and contemplative ("Holy Mountain", "Lonely Day", "Soldier Side") as well as my favorites - "Radio/ Video" with its bridge of nothing but Armenian music, and the beautifully crafted "Lost in Hollywood".  This is not just a heavy metal band.  These are artists, and these two albums always stay on my phone in their entirety.

5.  Blue October "Foiled" - This is a band that will always be special to me.  They, also, will have a new release next month that I will review.  Temple, the mother of three of my boys, gave the best description of this band - soft violins combined with Justin Furstenfeld's growling vocals creates a pleasant effect, as in the plaintive "Let It Go".  This album is proof that beauty can indeed come from pain.  Furstenfeld has admitted to having mental illness, and this produces some starkly beautiful lyrics - the softly melodic "She's My Ride Home" about disposing of dead bodies on the way home, and "Drilled a Wire Through My Cheek" about torture.  My other favorites are "You Make Me Smile" with its Pixies-like tune and beautiful poetry, the hard-rocking "What If We Could", the Depeche Mode-ish "X Amount of Words", and the romantic "Sound of Pulling Heaven Down".  I accidentally stumbled upon this band in 2006, and they have become one of my favorites.  I have made some online friends who love this band just as much as I do, if not more.  (Hi, Becca!)

6:  Heather Nova "Oyster" - My brother, Tony, introduced me to this album around 1996.  I had just moved to my ranch.  I had no electricity, no power - the only way I could listen to this was in the car.  I gravitated to it.  It represented, in my twenties, a hope of things to come as my life unfolded in front of me - in contrast to now, where I have a sense that my life is essentially over.  Heather Nova wasn't just a beautiful hippie chick with a guitar - although I really like beautiful hippie chicks with guitars.  Her songs were wistful, sung in a deliciously breathy voice, sad, plaintive, and sometimes angry.  "Walk the World" could be an anthem to me - not in the sense of its sexual metaphors, but my true desire to walk this world again.  "Light Years" and "Verona" show that this hippie chick can rock.  "Heal", "Walking Higher", and "Doubled Up" demonstrate how much she can do with just a guitar and her voice.  My favorite song is "Island", which is about escaping your problems to a remote island.  It has a trudging pace, offset by her haunting melody and a cello.  There was a time in the '90s where this album was mostly what I listened to.  It still stands the test of time.

7.  The Hush Sound "Like Vines" - What do you get when you combine a rock guitarist (Bob Morris) with a classical pianist (Greta Salpeter)?  You get an awesome band like the Hush Sound, who were probably ahead of their time.  With their ragtime piano, vocal styles (both his and hers) that sound like they come from the Prohibition Era, they would fit right in with today's steampunk motif, taking a note from the Dresden Dolls.  Produced by Patrick Stump (of Fallout Boy) this album also has a Danny Elfman feel, like in the circus-themes "Lion's Roar".  Many of the songs are just dulcid - "Sweet Tangerine" and "Magnolia".  Some are haunting like the piano melody, "Lighthouse".  My favorite is "Wine Red" which is a funky piece driven by the piano and vivid lyrics:

The sea is wine red

This is the death of beauty

The doves have died

The lovers have lied

The Hush Sound broke up in 2008, but they recently reformed with talks of a new album.  I am excited.

8.  Dream Theater "Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes From a Memory" -   When I was in high school, all of the and geeks were into Rush, who admired their technical precision.  Dream Theater - one of the last surviving hair metal bands - are one of those precise bands who seem more like jazz than metal.  What I mean by this -  long, extended jam sessions where each musician in the band gets some time to showcase their unique ability.  "Metropolis Pt. 1" was a part of a previous album, and the second part encompasses an entire concept album.  On the surface, this album could seem pretentious - written and divided into scenes and overtures and movements.  But it works.  The album tells the story of a man obsessed with a love triangle in the 1920s that ended in a murder.  This is progressive music at its best - ranging from hard and heavy to sounding like a Broadway musical.  As it should.  This album needs to go onto Broadway.  James LaBrie sings all of the roles, but this is definitely a theatrical piece.  Almost fifteen years later, I break out this album and still enjoy it.  It is such a concept that one song does not sit well by itself.  You have to listen to whole album.

9.  Modest Mouse "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" -   Around 2004, I was hearing a lot about Modest Mouse in magazines, and such.  So I decided to see what the big deal was, so I bought their album "The Moon & Antarctica".  I hated it.  Over the next couple of years, I would periodically pull it out and listen to it, only to have the same low opinion of it.  Then, I remember, it suddenly made sense.  I finally "got" it, and I loved it.  By then, "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" had come out, and it was much more palatable than their previous releases.  The catchy "Float On" and "Ocean Breathes Salty" reminded me so much of Wolfgang Press, but it is nice to see bands that are influenced by the same music I grew up listening to.  This band has a delightful penchant for the discordant as in "Bury Me With It" and "Dance Hall".  "The Devil's Workday" is a jazz song from hell played on brass.  My favorites are the songs that feature the stand-up bass and banjo - "Bukowski" and "Satin in a Cofin".  The album ends with a guest appearance from Wayne Coyne (from the Flaming Lips).  I have loved everything this band has done since, but this album is the one that stands out to me.

10.  Tears For Fears "The Hurting" - For my last album, I have to say - I am not a Tears For Fears fan.  In fact, they kind of annoy me.  No "Songs from the Big Chair" for me, no "Shout, shout let it all out", no "Sowing the seeds of love"...  I only like this album, and that's it.  This album is enough to establish them as musical geniuses in my book.  It is dark.  It is moody.  And that was enough for me when I was a teen.  This album encapsulated every heartache I experienced back then.  But it really is an original album.  "Mad World", with its infectious rhythm, has been covered ad nauseum.  But the original version is really the best.  Of course, everyone recognizes the early MTV staple, "Change".  "Pale Shelter" and "Watch Me Bleed" are unique, because in the days when electronica was new, they combined acoustic guitars with keyboards, something that other dark wave bands like Clan of Xymox later imitated.  "Memories Fade" and "Start of the Breakdown"are just dripping with angst, just what I needed as a surly 15 year-old.  I think this album stands the test of time.  It is an ingenious arrangement of piano, keyboards, and percussion.

So that's my list.  Now tell me yours...

Moroni's Review of Pink's "The Truth About Love"

Okay, so this is really not that new of an album, but it is new to me.  My ex-wife (who adores this album) downloaded it to my laptop a couple of months ago.  I am just getting around to reviewing it.

It should be said that I am not a really a huge fan of Pink.  I don’t really dislike her music, either.  I guess I am not really a big fan of Top 40 Pop in general.  But if you are going to listen to this kind of music, then Pink is definitely the artist to listen to.  I wish other pop artists were like her.  She either writes, or co-writes, all of her music.  She has retained creative control of her albums, and she has a deliciously punk-rock attitude.  You have to respect that, especially in a Top 40 artist.

When I started to research this album – “The Truth About Love” – I was startled to see how much of Pink’s music I already had on my laptop.  So one day, while waiting for my clothes to wash, I listened to selections from each one of her albums, and I had to admit to myself, her music is not that bad.  The same can be said of her new album – not that bad.  Maybe it’s just my mild derision of music that dominates the airwaves, and my mistrust of the music establishment.  It is listenable, but, honestly, this album will probably not be on repeat on my phone.  It probably won’t even go on my phone, and I will probably move on to other music the moment I am done writing this review.

The album kicks off very nicely with the tongue-twisting “Are We All We Are”, with a pounding beat and eerie background vocals.  The next song “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)” receives a lot of radio play.  From the first moment I heard it, I thought it was an obvious rip-off of Modest Mouse’s “Float On”.  But that’s okay, because “Float On” was definitely a rip-off of Wolfgang Press’s “The Great Leveller” (whom I discussed in the last post) from the ‘80s.  It’s all relative, and everyone borrows from someone else.  But just as something to pass the time, YouTube these three songs and compare them.  It's amusing.

The next track is “Try” – a motivational ballad.  I actually like this song.  There are a few collaborations on the album – “Just Give Me a Reason” with Nate Ruess from fun. (whom I think are not that fun.) and “True Love” with Lily Allen.  Neither are enough to write home about.  The effort with Eminem – “Here Comes the Weekend” – is pretty good.  However, I mistook Eminem for Snoop Dogg (er, Lion?)  It gets to the point where are rappers sound the same to me.  There are a couple of piano ballads, “Beam Me Up” and “The Great Escape”, that are okay, at best.  “How Come You’re Not Here” emulates Pink’s obsession with Janis Joplin.  “Slut Like You” and “Walk of Shame” are both catchy tunes, and, by far, my favorite songs on the album. 

Once again, this is not a bad album, but the hard and sad truth about “The Truth About Love” is that it is not at all that memorable.  Still, I like Pink as a celebrity personality, and as an artist with integrity.  I do hope that she is around for a long time.