Review: Modest Mouse

Review: Modest Mouse

Modest Mouse 'We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank': Aidin Vaziri | Drunken cowboys, fake Jamaicans and lonely astronauts. These are the kinds of characters that have occupied Modest Mouse's songs for 14 years. But on the band's fifth proper album there's an entirely different presence looming among the spiky verses and sea-chantey choruses: former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. No matter how many photographs you see of the lineup, the dapper British gent with the fringe haircut still looks out of place standing among a bunch of flannel-clad lumberjacks from rural Issaquah, Wash. It's too bad that the striking visual incongruity doesn't carry over to the music because, on first listen, it's easy to get the impression that "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" is the sound of Modest Mouse operating on autopilot. The bouncy, existential hit "Float On" may have helped 2004's "Good News for People That Love Bad News" go mainstream, but on the evidence of the new material, it's clearly not a place where the group intends to stay. Lead single "Dashboard" swells with disco strings and a jittery guitar line but gives way to the usual course of twisted melodies, dense arrangements and the off-kilter lyrics of singer Isaac Brock (left). There are a few genuine pop moments to be found at the halfway mark, with tracks like "Missed the Boat" and "Little Motel," but, well, let's just say the rest is not a total return to Modest Mouse's early indie days but impenetrable enough to keep the producers of "The O.C." at arm's length when they get around to compiling the soundtrack for their next television pilot.