Modest Mouse is here to have fun, damn it
Modest Mouse's new record The Golden Casket explores new, festival-worthy territory
Music Features Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse is an indie giant—the band knows that when you finally get to see them again, it’ll be in a massive venue, or maybe even a music festival. And thankfully, its first album in six years, The Golden Casket, is concerned primarily with fun, lending itself exactly to that kind of concert-going experience. What else could you expect from a record that opens with a song called “Fuck Your Acid Trip”? (And yes, the song does actually sound like an acid trip.)
Golden Casket tries to shake things up. Strangers To Ourselves felt like a less exciting version of Modest Mouse’s biggest records. It didn’t work too well, failing to stack up against its promising, catchy single, “Lampshades On Fire.” But Golden Casket explores a poppier sound that’s unlike anything Modest Mouse has done. Fans could argue that previous hits like “We’ve Got Everything” and “Float On” veer into pop territory. But new songs like “We Are Between,” “Leave A Light On,” and “Walking And Running” sound like 2010s blog-rock—specifically recalling Foals’ Total Life Forever era.
That’s not the only adjustment. Songs like “Transmitting Receiving” and “Never Fuck A Spider On A Fly” add electronic elements, and while it seems like it shouldn’t work for Modest Mouse, somehow it does. With the band releasing this record the same month as Sleater-Kinney’s Path Of Wellness, the comparison between how the two legacy indie acts have handled the changes in their career over the past two decades is unavoidable. Sleater-Kinney seems to be taking itself too seriously, with Carrie Brownstein constantly trying to reinvent the band in its new era, but losing its spark in the process by overthinking how to sound fresh; Modest Mouse, in contrast, sounds aware that no matter what it does, fans will always latch on to hits that are over a decade old. The group isn’t concerned with creating a new “era” of Modest Mouse, but rather toying with what it can create that the band members haven’t before, without being concerned over alienating its audience; after all, “Float On” will always be a massively overplayed hit, so to some degree, they have nothing to lose.
Some fans may be perplexed by this move, but it feels fun. And that seems to be the basis of Golden Casket. Bandleader Isaac Brock isn’t fixated on taking himself seriously. But that doesn’t mean the album’s devoid of tracks that feel like the Modest Mouse fans know and love. (“Wooden Soldiers” directly hearkens back to the We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank era, while being one of the softest, simplest songs on the album.) As long as you go into Golden Casket knowing there will only be some traces of the old Modest Mouse, there’s a lot to enjoy.
26 Comments
What’s more fun than cigarettes and glaring?
Letting out a big fart while glaring
When hookers ‘n blow just aren’t in your budget.
Shishas and leering.
I get it that Strangers to Ourselves is uneven. But DAMN the good tracks are fucking great … as good as anything they’ve ever done.
Yeah, dude, the hits on that album rule. The Ground Walks is just perfection
It got a B+ on this site, too. The Ground Walks… is an all-timer.
I hope you include Ansel and Pups To Dust in the great ones. That was the thing about Strangers to me. The more melancholy tracks worked best for me. We Were Dead had both. I loved People As Places As People on the melancholy side, but the rockers were also killer. Strangers never really rocked out full steam. Not like Spitting Venom. Yet I still enjoy the record.
Hmm, blog-rock is not a promising term.
I fear it might catch on.
Honest to blog?
Don’t love the phrase, but Total Life Forever is one of the best albums of the century
Yeah but a Foals comparison makes me hopeful.
Why did he name his album after the scratchies & lottery company?
Modest Mouse has never not been fun. Angry and weird, sure, but always a blast to listen to.
I’m glad the review is positive, but it’s also massively disappointing how little it focuses on the album itself. This thing is a masterwork of experimentation while still being 100% Modest Mouse. It’s also beautiful and moving, somehow being classic and new all at once. “We’re Lucky”, “Walking And Running”, “Wooden Soldiers”, “The Sun Hasn’t Left”, “Lace Your Shoes”, “Japanese Trees” and “Back To The Middle” are all tracks that deserve to be added to the top tier of the discography, but there are no weak tracks. Any MM fan that doesn’t check into this album is doing themselves a huge disservice.
“But that doesn’t mean the album’s devoid of tracks that feel like the
Modest Mouse fans know and love. (“Wooden Soldiers” directly hearkens
back to the We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank era…”If they’re harkening back to We Were Dead, then that’s a bad sign in my book. It’s easily their low-point, in my opinion. On the other hand, Leave A Light On doesn’t sound anything like it and it doesn’t sound fun either. So I’m intrigued!
I will be honest, I don’t think that description of Wooden Soldiers is very apt. It is a phenomenal song, but it is without a doubt harkening back to Ugly Casanova. You could sincerely place that song anywhere on Sharpen Your Teeth and never know it was from 2021 Modest Mouse.
Modest Mouse were always at their best when either the lyrics/voices were sort of out there, and the music was more straightforward poppy/catchy/melodic. Or vice versa. One or the other. Their last couple records, it seemed like they were consciously trying to make both weird, and it didn’t really work. This seems like it’s a bit more on track.
The lyrical weirdness was a bit too
I always felt like Brock’s greatest strength as a songwriter was the ability to make universal and personal statements in a touching but unpretentious way. It just happened that often times that way was super weird or idiosyncratic. It felt like both We Were Dead and Strangers to Ourselves focused on being weird first rather than just trying to communicate something. I really like this record so far, it’s got a heart that at the center of it that I didn’t always feel in the last two.
On the other end of the unsatisfying scale, a song like “Satellite Skin” was just not weird enough. It’s a good song, pleasant enough, but sounds like something Isaac Brock could’ve written after rolling out of bed. There’s nothing particularly interesting about it, even though if another band made it I probably would think more highly of it.
Modest Mouse is here to tell you to get off their property.
I’ve listened to the linked song and a few more, and it just sounds like the music their less-interesting peers from the late 2000s were making. Disappointing.
It’ll never be normal to me that articles like this and everyone talks like “Good News…” was MMs first album