rancid1993's Full Review: No One's First and You're Next by Modest Mouse
This was a rare Modest Mouse release that should have been hard to get excited about, following their worst (IMHO) studio album in We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. This EP was simply the process of collecting the loose ends and scraps from the recording sessions and B-Sides of singles from We Were Dead and the previous record, Good News For People Who Love Bad News. Such a collection has worked in the past for MM, with previous compilations such as Building Nothing Out of Something and Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks being great successes, Building Nothing is still one of my favorite MM CD's to pop in and listen to. Even though We Were Dead was pretty dismissible to me, I held on to hope that the songs that were discarded might have not meshed stylistically with the rest of the album, and there'd be some gems on this EP.
The opener, Satellite Skin, is the exact type of song I would expect to see/hear on a A/B sides compilation. It's not a bad song, in fact one of my favorite on the EP, but there's really nothing remarkable about it. The constant strumming pattern coming from Isaac Brock's guitar is forgettable, as is his casual, continuous vocal delivery. The follow up is Guilty Cocker Spaniels, and it fares even worse. The vocal delivery becomes more frantic and rapid fire, allowing Brock to sound like the raging lunatic that has made appearances on MM's last two albums. Where Satellite Skin seems to lack direction and doesn't really build up toward anything, Guilty Cocker Spaniels has completely forgettable, sometimes even unnoticeable instrumental backing.
Two songs I tend to lump together on the EP are Autumn Beds and History Sticks to Your Feet, which are both well written melodies with a slower pace than most of the songs you'd find on the two albums that these songs were cut from. I have a hard time giving them anything other than an average grade, but they're certainly a different (and welcome) change of pace. The first track on the EP that is truly satisfying is The Whale Song. The three minute long instrumental introduction introduces a sharpness and bite in the guitars and bass that had been sorely missing up until this song. Clearly cut from We Were Dead, Johnny Marr's influence is felt very strongly in this one.
Perpetual Motion Machine goes back to Good News, with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band helping out with this track like they did with that album. While an interesting subject, talking about how people essentially want to become perpetual motion machines and live forever. However, this is my least favorite cut of the album, with the brass being a little overpowering and the result being a song that would feel right at home being played over loudspeakers at a carnival.
The final two tracks are two of my favorite from the EP. King Rat is an uptempo number with heavy banjo playing by Isaac Brock. This song has received some publicity because the video which was directed by Heath Ledger was recently released. The bouncy banjo results in a more bluegrass sound, with the elements of rock still there in full force. Rounding out the eight songs is I've Got It All (Most), cut from Good News. This song is loaded with metaphors and word play, and the vocal delivery goes from quiet and timed to more intensive and louder along with the guitar. While enjoyable, this song suffers the same fate as Satellite Skin, potential to be great, but the song never fully develops into anything greater.
Overall, you have a solid, but far from great collection of songs in No One's First, and You're Next. Oddly enough, you get a ton of diversity in only eight songs, and while a few of the eight are very good, they're unable to lift the EP above what it is - an inexpensive collection of songs that hold us over until the next record from Modest Mouse.
Satellite Skin - **** Guilty Cocker Spaniels - *** Autumn Beds - *** The Whale Song - **** Perpetual Motion Machine - ** History Sticks to Your Feet - *** King Rat - **** I've Got It All (Most) - ****
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