Modest Mouse – No One’s First and You’re Next

No One’s First and You’re Next, the new EP from Modest Mouse, is comprised of tracks that didn’t make the cut on their prior two albums, Good News For People Who Love Bad News and We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.

This album is an awesome sandwich, but the bread’s kinda stale. Some of the tracks, like “I’ve Got It All (Most)”, you can easily see why it wasn’t included on the actual albums. Then you have songs like “Perpetual Motion Machine”, which sees the return of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and rocks my socks. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I heart horns. A lot.

The two “hits” off of this album so far seem to be “Satellite Skin” and “History Sticks To Your Feet”. They’re good, but nothing compared to “Whale Song”, a downright aberrant blend of ambient noise and chanting vocals. Modest Mouse should be weird, dammit. That’s just who they are. Chalk this one into the “Amanda’s Weird Hippie Music” catagory. It has these amazing, bending guitar chords and sharp snaps that send me right on back to the 1996 indie days.

All in all, it’s a decent album. No Sad Sappy Sucker or The Fruit That Ate Itself, but a decent album. Sometimes I think it’s a shame that Isaac Brock discovered that he could make mainstream albums. B
PS: Know what makes me sad, though? Heath Ledger made a video for “King Rat”. Yes, Terry Gilliam animated it, but how many 15 year old girls are going to be freaking out over Modest Mouse because Heath Ledger made the video?

Dear 15 year old girls, please don’t suck at life.