No One's First, And You're Next - Modest Mouse
Fans of We We're Dead Before The Ship Even Sank will likely be licking their lips at the prospect of getting there hands on this EP/mini album, and rightly so. It see's Modest Mouse take the sea shanty sound of their previous effort crank up the guitars and sees Issaac Brock howling like a man possessed. There's certainly still a lost a sea vibe to this record, the manic album opener Sattilite Skin sets the tone with Brock positioned somewhere between David Bowie and Nick Cave. Of course rather than Cave's crazed preacher we get the crazed sea captain but all the ranting rhetoric is rooted around a Bowie style melody. It's also follows the standard 70s Bowie chord progessions over the top of which Marr lays down a fine sliding guitar solo. It's a fine opening track and a solid choice for a first single but it doesn't match up to Dashboard.
However as the album advances it begins to feel more sporadic. The Modest Mouse fans among you will probably already know that this is not an album of new materiel, it's a collection of outakes, b sides and singles from the period 2005 to now. However while the tracks may not be fresh, they are incredibly relevant, those seeking to find Modest Mouse's new dirrection should pay close attention to No One's First... it combines their big pop sensibilities of the charming Autumn Beds with the more visercal meniacal rock of King Rat and Guilty Cocker Spaniels. It's shows the Modest Mouse at there most sweet and it's most thrilling, and if the next album brings these contrasting dirrections together Modest Mouse could well create their biggest critical and commercial success to date.
Right in the middle of the album is the six minute Whale Song, whether it's actually meant to represent whale song who knows but the driving guitar is a delight, and it's a wonderfully, densely layered with multiple guitar tracks, and at the there minute mark it's joined by layer upon layers of vocals before developing a hook that threatens to be as big as Dashboard but of course it's alittle too weird to match that ambition. Before anything can sink in we are pulled into a whirlpool of swirling guitar solos. It's a hell of a journey and undoubtably the album most intriguing and thrilling track.
After that epic centre peice we go to seemingly it's polar opposite Perpetual Motion Picture Machine an old timey horn arrangement with a spoon, knee and box tapping beat. It's the albums Tom Waits moment, it's a charming little ditty but and one of the album most approachable tracks, but it kind of takes the wind out of your sales after Whale Song. The albums other high point is King Rat with it's tinny southern guitar twang, rich rasping strings and Brock wild eyed ravings that get steadily more and more and more intense. It seems his santity is slipping away with each and every verse. The arrangement is dark and goergous it feels like Waits meets Cave meets the Pixies on the set of a Moby Dick stage play. It's a mind warping delight.
No One's First, And Your Next is a sychizofrenic album, it jumps back and forward to different periods in Modest Mouse's evolution. There are however signs of an irresistable future for Modest Mouse the epicness of Whale Song, the primal energy of King Rat & Guilty Cocker Spaniels, and the big pop balladry of Autumn Song more than suggest that things are only going to get bigger and better for Brock and company. The most intriguing aspect of this entire EP is trying to figure out where Modest Mouse go next? They're a band with such depths of talent and an endless supply of creativity, if they can ever manage to channel it in just one direction the world will be their's for the taking. All in all No One's First, And Your Next is a exhibtion crammed full of great tracks and throwaway singles, it's well worth the investiment, and it's brevity helps overcome it's unsettled nature.
Check out the Heat Ledger dirrected video for the excellent King Rat:
(You might still need to mute the Lily Allen Game)
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