Album Review: Modest Mouse--Still Content To Be Malcontent

There are few bands I get so excited about that I circle their albums' release dates in my calendar, but Modest Mouse has become one of them. Now, although everyone surely employs this argument in an attempt to validate their listening credentials, I wasn't one of those that suddenly turned my head when Modest Mouse's record label sicced Float On onto the radio-listening 20-something set. In fact, I had discovered the band in Japan in 2003, and tracks like "3rd Planet", "Gravity Rides Everything", "Night on the Sun", "So Much Beauty in Dirt" and "Never Ending Math Equation" served collectively as my de facto soundtrack as I stumbled through growing up abroad.

I will not, though, admit to knowing much about Johnny Marr, or even The Smiths. I've heard that they were big for continuously depressed, wish-they-were-suicidal teenagers back in the '80s. Thus, Marr joining the band doesn't immediately signal a lot to me musically. The addition, however, was a huge symbolic act in the midst of a newfound MM lovefest. It was an act that said, "You know what, we're still gonna be there with the bewildering lyrics, the melancholic attitude, and maybe even a 40 of PBR."

According to my iTunes, I've listened to the album 9 times since purchasing it in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. I'll probably listen to it another 9 hours before this weekend. Why? Because we all go through those funky moods that only a little Modest Mouse can cure. Is the most effective cure for what occasionally ails me to be found on this particular album, though? A track-by-track look at the album reveals it to be a curious mix of old and new:

1. "March Into the Sea": Just a little bizarre. With yelling. MM doing its best to alienate its new fans and reassure its old ones.
2. "Dashboard": The single. MM doing its best to placate its record label and alienate its older fans...until, of course, it pulls the old MM tactic of changing course halfway into the song...but then it comes back to its modestly (get it?) hard-rocking guitar licks.
3. "Fire It Up": This group just really likes playing up the theme of the automobile and its place in American society.
4. "Florida": Some old school stuff mixed flawlessly with the new school.
5. "Parting of the Sensory": Old MM fans will feel right at home sulking in their beer while listening to this song.
6. "Missed the Boat": And into the next pint.
7. "We've Got Everything": I'm crying in my pint. Now I'm dancing. Now I'm crying again.
8. "Fly Trapped In a Jar": See track 1.
9. "Education": See tracks 1 & 8.
10. "Little Motel": Old school. Complete with head-scratching lyrics that are either profound or empty. As the song says, "That's what I'm waiting for"--it might as well be speaking about those folks still clutching onto their copies of This Is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About.
11. "Steam Engenius": More motor-related imagery. I'm sensing a concept album.
12. "Spitting Venom": The real darkhorse of the album. Slow and steady, this Johnny Cash-paced song takes its time to add small layers to the track before spitting venom all over the speakers. Quite possibly the best song on the album.
13. "People As Places As People": More head-scratching lyrics and metaphors.
14. "Invisible": This song tells us that "you are not invisible inside your car". A mass transit endorsement? A scathing attack on our anti-social habits? Probably just Modest Mouse continuing to get off on your attempts to decode its obscurantism.