The New Music

Modest Mouse No One’s First, And You’re Next [Epic]

In case you’ve been out of touch with Modest Mouse since Johnny Marr tricked the band out with 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, No One’s First, And You’re Next is not a true follow-up but some filler meant for tiding over fans.

Its purpose serves much like 2000’s Building Nothing Out of Something and 2001’s Everywhere And His Nasty Parlour Tricks, which is to empty anything in the vault worthy of an audience. Some songs date as far back as 2004’s Good News For People Who Love Bad News, which continues the band’s dedication to giving fans all they’ve got. And like those other comps, No One’s First may be considered a batch of their odds’n’sods, but it contains some of the band’s better songs from the last five years.

Opener “Satellite Skin” was originally a release set for April’s Record Store Day as a 7″, and it acts as a fine first single. With the same accessibility as previous hits like “Float On” and “Dashboard,” it does fall a little short when it comes to supplying a memorable chorus. Still the bendy guitars and light, fluttering arrangement give it a shot at airplay consideration. “Autumn Beds,” another 7″ single, features Isaac Brock on banjo, an instrument he began to incorporate as a regular around the time of Good News. As a lead instrument, it gives the song more of a modern rock tilt, which has become more common with the last two albums.

“King Rat” is the song that everyone is talking about, but mostly because the video was directed by late actor Heath Ledger. Without the grisly cartoon visuals, the song loses some of its intensity, sure, but it’s also quite theatrical, as Brock plays a variety of characters as the song escalates to a boiling point where The Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s bleeding horns converge with Modest Mouse’s own rackety climax.

The Dirty Dozen also return for “Perpetual Motion Machine,” which was an obvious leftover from Good News. Here though their tin pan alley skronks become too dominant in the mix, which is essentially what kept me from embracing that album’s “This Devil’s Workday.”

Call me nostalgic, but the better bits of this EP come from songs reminiscent of their days on Up as a three-piece. “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” may have been a B-side, but it is arguably more memorable and dynamic than “Satellite Skin,” thanks to Brock’s seething pokes at modern life (i.e. Facebook) and the soaring, bent guitar notes. “History Sticks To Your Feet” goes so far as re-introducing the backwards masking guitars that have been M.I.A. for years now. And while “The Whale Song” can be a bit trying, the tangled guitars recall the inventive era when they were writing songs like “Heart Cooks Brain.”

Though it isn’t as rewarding as a full-length, which Building Nothing Out of Something somehow managed to do, No One’s First is successful in filling that void as we wait for the next studio album. More than anything, however, it reminds us of where the band have been and where they’re most likely headed in the future.

Rating: B

- Cam Lindsay

Posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 1:37 pm by Cam and is filed under The New Music.

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