minorthreat78's Full Review: This Is a Long Drive For Someone With Nothing to T...
What can be said about Modest Mouse that hasn't been said already? Well, probably quite a bit. Admittedly, the band has certainly enjoyed a sea change in their Q-rating, what with a hit single and a top-20 album on the old Billboard charts. However, the band has been around quite a while, and they've put together quite a body of work prior to their most recent album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News.
While the band met its indie-rock breakthrough with the exceptional The Lonesome Crowded West, and met with some success with their major-label debut, The Moon and Antarctica, their first full-length album was the decidedly quirkily titled This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About, released by Up Records a number of years ago. While not nearly as refined as their later albums, the album still shows the band's already early interest in playing with oddball instruments, and the quirky vocal and guitar antics of Isaac Brock.
Much of the basic elements of the Modest Mouse formula are plainly seen on this album: dissonant guitar licks and vocal yelp/singing courtesy of Isaac Brock, steady drum fills, and a kitchen-sink approach to instrumentation (slide guitar, cello, and pretty much anything else they could get their hands on). The overall theme of the album appears to be separation, longing and loss; in other words, pretty much the same theme as any other Modest Mouse album, or, for that matter, about 75% of male-fronted indie-rock bands.
In other words, the album is a more low-fi version of a Modest Mouse album, but not significantly different from their later albums. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'll talk a bit about the songs.
The album is pretty lengthy, particularly for an indie-rock album; it's nearly 75 minutes long. There is a definite bias toward more down-tempo tracks; most of the first half of the album is pretty slow, almost to Yo La Tengo/Galaxie 500-level slow.
The album's opener, "Dramamine" is vaguely dream-like in its dissonance, but quite pleasant, even if it is about a listless and doomed relationship; a great start to the album, and it flows smoothly into "Breakthrough", a track with more aggressive guitars and potent rhythm elements.
From here, the album does slow down fairly noticably for several tracks. Its not to say that the songs are bad; I can certainly listen to all of them without really disliking them. However, much of this middle part of the album just doesn't stand out as well in my mind. There are exceptions, most notably the driving "Head South", but a lot of this middle part of the album is not too distinctive; pleasant background music, but not too memorable.
Toward the end of the album, however, the pace picks up, and with tracks like "Tundra/Desert" and "Exit Does Not Exist", the album becomes more attention-grabbing. Demonstrating more of the band's fondness for playing around with music, the later tracks of the album show much of the potential the band would show on later albums.
Overall, this is a really good album. Admittedly, some of it is a little less than exciting, but it is quite listenable. While not one of Modest Mouse's best albums, it still is quite impressive for a band's early work.
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