So I'm still relatively new to Modest Mouse, but I'm finding that it's fun to review these guys. They're still considered an "indie band" in spirit despite being major label nowadays, and thanks to a massive hit in "Float On" (followed by the even more amusing, though not as ubiquitous, "Ocean Breathes Salty"), tons of casual music listeners are at least aware of who they are. They're fun to talk about because they're pretty wacky - you get a taste of it even in their "mainstream" singles. Most of the weight of that description lies on the shoulders of lead singer Isaac Brock, whose vocal style often resembles that of a drunken hillbilly, but who also shows an impressive enough range to make you think when you first hear the band that they must have at least three different singers. You know how some voice actors have played a multitude of different characters in shows like The Simpsons, or the Pixar movies? Yeah, it's kind of like that, but with occasional bursts of profanity and some of the most amusing phrasing that could ever be referred to as "pessimistic". The fact that he's fronting a band whose music sounds like a head-on collision between a frat party, a ship full of rowdy sailors, and an entire library full of jaded philosophers, only serves to sweeten the deal. It's an acquired taste, to be sure. But once you've acquired it, it's fun to try and describe their music to the uninitiated. Thankfully, their newest album, We Were Dead before the Ship Even Sank, has enabled me to acquire that taste, after Good News for People Who Love Bad News didn't quite manage to please my palette.

I'll confess at this point that I know nothing of Modest Mouse from before Good News. Apparently there are a number of fans from the days when they were truly indie that have grumbled a bit about the direction they've taken on these last few albums. Given how unapologetically bizarre some of the songs on this new album are, I can't say that this would be a very good way to go "mainstream" (even if a few well-chosen singles are undeniably catchy - they pull this off without losing sight of their idiosyncrasies, for the most part). Most casual listeners looking for a conventional pop/rock radio tune would be immediately put off by the vocals. But then, I have no idea what Modest Mouse sounded like before. Maybe they were less melodic or something, but in any case, I don't equate anything they're doing now with selling out. They just happened to be fortunate enough to score an unlikely hit or two pretty late in the game. If anything, it's a sign that commercial radio is getting less snobbish these days. (But that's probably wishful thinking on my part.)

So, what's the deal with a long title like We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank? That's a very good question. I've taken in its barrage of seafaring metaphors and fatalistic musings on the subjects of travel and invention several times, and I'm still not quite sure what these guys are on about. But Isaac Brock definitely wasn't blowing smoke when he described the album as a "nautical balalaika carnival romp". There may be an amped-up rock band playing these songs, but stylistically, several of them seem to find their roots in the rowdier end of folk music (yes, folk music can be rowdy; it's not always some quiet dude with an acoustic guitar pining away over his favorite state), and there are elements of funk and disco thrown in occasionally, some lively horns and strings every now and then, and even (shockingly enough) a sensitive ballad. Does all of this work? How does it actually fit together? Shouldn't this all amount to a massive aural disaster? Hard to say, but I'm getting a surprising amount of enjoyment out of it.

Now I'm still not sold on all of Isaac Brock's yelping and cussing. Sometimes it's amusing. Sometimes it just causes a song that would otherwise be rather inoffensive to grate on the nerves. The good news is that the band - assisted greatly by their newest member, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, have tightened things up a bit after some rather loose and baffling tracks sort of derailed their previous album. There's lots of cool riffage here as Marr slices and dices (and sometimes carefully doodles) his way through these songs, but I don't want to single him out as the sole star of the show. Brock's guitar work plays well off of his, drummer Jeremiah Green comes up with some amazingly snappy rhythms on nearly every song, Eric Judy funks it up on the bass when appropriate, and the other two guys in the band... OK, I can't find any definitive information on what they do, but there's a lot of supplemental instrumentation and it can't all be coming out of nowhere. The point is that this band has personality. Love them or hate them, you're never gonna mistake them for anyone else. And We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank is a fine vehicle (pardon the pun) for their inspired lunacy.

March into the Sea
If you think you know enough to know you know we've had enough
And if you think you don't, you probably will...
Little bits of electronically chopped-up accordion give us a false sense of security before we're suddenly thrown into a rowdy maelstrom in 6/8 time, full of crashing drums and the trademark yelping of Isaac Brock, whose maniacal laughter makes him sound like an undead pirate captain come back to claim forsaken souls. He switches back and forth between this and his more wry, observational tone, and to great effect - you know they're gonna come back around to that larger-than-life refrain, but the interludes with their bells and accordions and violins and so forth make for a nice breather. I have no idea what they're talking about because these lyrics are positively nuts, but just 'cause it's fun to take a wild guess, I'll presume that he's taunting someone who has unknowingly set out on a suicide mission, hence the "marching into the sea". What's great is the way that the "Ah-ha-ha!"s and the other vocal sounds fit into the lyrics - at one point he describes a person's head as a gong with the tongue being a clapper, and then sees fit to illustrate with a little onomatopoeia: "Clang clang, clang claaaaaa... ANG!" Abrasive as hell on first listen, but it's really great stuff. Unlike "The World at Large", which eased you into Good News, this track serves as fair warning - if you can't handle these vocals, bail out and swim ashore NOW.

Dashboard
I was patiently erasing and recording the wrong episodes
After you had proved my point wrong, it wasn't like I'd let it go
I just wanted to catch the last laugh of this show...
Catchiest tune on the planet, this one. If you thought "Float On" got stuck in your head, wait until you hear this furiously danceable number, with Marr's zig-zagging guitar riff, the swooping "disco strings", and a tongue twister of a lyric that you won't be able to follow to save your life, and yet you won't be able to resist singing along to Isaac's repeated warning, "Well, it coulda been, shoulda been, worse than you would ever know!" He's singing about a car crash that his friends are insisting wasn't that bad, and going on and on about the worst case scenario in his usual pessimistic, but somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner. This one was a no-brainer for a first single choice, and it's got a highly amusing video to boot, which reinforces the album's nautical theme in a comical fashion that has to be seen to be believed.

Fire It Up
It honestly was beautifully bold
Like trying to save an ice cube from the cold...
Slowing things down a bit is this more relaxed, bass-driven tune, which doesn't pack the same punch as the first two tracks but is still fairly addictive with its lyrics about some sort of a fruitless endeavor (hmmm, are you noticing a theme yet?) Good use of bells and a fairly melodic lead guitar in this one - they get into a groove and have fun with it. It could be the theme to your summer barbecue, assuming of course that you forgot the lighter fluid, have no clue how to cook, and everyone ends up getting salmonella.

Florida
It took so much effort
Not to make an effort
Oh, what a flawless design...
Here's a manic, upbeat song with a whole lotta yelling and screaming during the chaotic verses, and a breezy, melodic chorus made possible by the assistance of The Shins' lead singer James Mercer (who actually sticks around to help out with two more tracks a little later). His voice has a sweet genuineness to it that offsets Brock's ironic tone as the two trade off, and I have to give Brock credit for the range of vocal styles covered here, which includes more of a sinister snarl during the song's stomping bridge, which is very much out of character with the rest of it. It's not necessarily a display of talent that I find all that enjoyable to listen to, though - all of the shouting rather than singing sort of robs the song of its ability to stay memorable throughout, since he and the slightly grating synthesized noises are competing with Marr's quick-fingered guitar riffing during each verse. Brock is quick to spit out the line "The sh*t that flew from my mind" during the first verse, so now we know we're getting deeper into the album where the profanities are going to be let loose more frequently. They seem to like giving us a few "clean" songs just to ease our way in, which I appreciate - not that all of their songs with swearing are bad, but Isaac does seem to have a bit of a fixation on feces in a few of these songs.

Parting of the Sensory
Who the hell made you the boss?
If you say what to do, I know what not to stop
If you ran the ship, who would ever get on?
Alright, so this song might be one case where I'm more amused by the swearing in a Modest Mouse song than I am put off by it. It's a doozy of a ballad, starting off with a simple acoustic guitar strum but getting more and more "stormy" as it goes, effectively demonstrating Modest Mouse's skill at turning a simple song into a much more psychedelic one. He's waxing philosophic about the aging of his molecules and noting how he seems to keep coming full circle year after year, like a tree gaining concentric rings. He's also badmouthing someone who appears to be a rather p!ss-poor captain, pointing out that, "Any sh*thead who had ever walked could take a ship and do a much finer job". It's not long before the electric guitar breaks in, spelling certain doom, and the band tries the best to batten down the hatches, but Isaac sums up their impending defeat with the his comical outburst: "Awww, f*ck it! I guess we lost." But the true brilliance of this track shows itself at the end, when after a four-minute dirge, Jeremiah Green's drums kick into high gear, launching into some sweet rolls and turning the song into a lively square dance, complete with shouts of "Hey! Hey! Hey!" and some jolly fiddle playing, as Isaac rambles on excitedly about how "Someday you will die and somehow something's gonna steal your carbon". You can just picture the guys sitting around on old cargo creates, pounding away at their instruments and stomping and clapping while the waves begin to spill over the sides of the boat, as if they're the modern version of that legendary string quartet on the Titanic.

Missed the Boat
Of course everyone goes crazy
Over such and such and such
We made ourselves a pillar
But we just used it as a crutch...
This is a cute little acoustic pop song with an electric guitar interjecting its little fanfare every so often - another good choice for a radio single that is more accessible while not hiding the band's personality. This one's about man's best laid plans going sour as he looks over at his fellow man and wishes they could just trade lives. It's a tale of acquiring the tools but never quite figuring out how to build the boat. As Isaac puts it - "Our ideas held no water, but we used them like a dam." (Though a similar line gives him the chance to interject "Godd*mn!" later on, which I suppose is a clever use of homonyms, but I've never been a huge fan of blasphemy.) James Mercer adds just the right amount of sunshine to a chorus about laughing all the way to hell - the song would certainly be depressing as hell if it wasn't all being performed with such a tongue-in-cheek attitude. Isaac throws in a little bit of his "whispering devil voice" behind his lead vocal during the last verse (you heard it before in "Bukowski"), which never ceases to entertain me. And there's a gentle, but really well-played electric guitar solo at the end of this one, right before it segues very suddenly into the next track.

We've Got Everything
If we carried it out to sea, pushed it over the edge
We could have all been through
Well no one even bothered showin' up
But we still did what we should have thought through...
Here comes fun, danceable song #2, with its electronically chewed-up-and-spit-out drum beat, Johnny's zippy guitar riffs, and equal doses of unbridled hubris and pure laziness. I'm getting the idea that a lot of this album is about how much we claim to know versus how little we actually do with that knowledge - that concept is exemplified here as the guys haughtily proclaim, "We've got everything down to a science, so I guess we know everything!", which then leads them to change the chorus to "We know everything!" (and later "We've done everything!" and "We've tried everything!", before coming full circle). And there James Mercer is again, for the third and final time, energetically singing "We've got, we've got, we've got..." in between Brock's vocals in the chorus. The verse takes a different tack, explaining how this know-it-all group of whiz kids decided to take one too many days off and get drunk and so forth, and by the time they finally got their boat ready to go, nobody even showed up to see if it was seaworthy. Man, that sucks. If it wasn't for "Dashboard", this would probably be my favorite song on the album. I liked Mercer's contribution enough that it finally convinced me to go check out The Shins (who, unfortunately, don't seem to be nearly as energetic or interesting as his contributions to Modest Mouse).

Fly Trapped in a Jar
Well I hadn't noticed, but the people really noticed
That they really didn't want us around
So we all just opened up our mouths and wallets to this town...
Things get a little more spotty in the album's second half. This track in particular gets off to a bit of a slow start with its "honking" keyboards and lead vocals that are a bit too deranged for the tempo and overall feel of the song. I really get tired of hearing him bark "One wing isn't even enough!" over and over, and I also find it weird that we're still hearing about buddies getting drunk and stuff, as if there were leftover lyrics from the previous song. The middle section of the song picks things up considerably, when Jeremiah whips out a killer disco-funk sort of rhythm that fits the vocals and the sinister guitar riffs a lot better than the clumsy rhythm that preceded it. It's still not a favorite of mine, but that rhythm does usually cause me to do a geeky little dance in my car seat.

Education
Our instincts, they were cringing
About how we lived our lives
It didn't seem we'd lived enough
To even get to die...
This song probably shouldn't have followed "Fly Trapped in a Jar", since it's also got a bit of funk influence to it (most notably in Eric Judy's bass riffs, which are just awesome) and has even more of a slow, careful groove to it than the preceding song did. Isaac's going on about all of our book knowledge basically being a load of crap, and he seems particularly fixated on the phrase "stubborn beauty", which is interesting since it first cropped up in "Parting of the Sensory", but I start to become numb to its meaning after he repeats it way too many times in this song. It's not really that long, but it seems to drag a bit. Of course there has to be a reference to monkeys "flinging sh*t" - thanks a lot for that image, Isaac.

Little Motel
We trade tit for tat, yeah, that for this
And I don't think that there was an insult that was missed
I can see it in your eyes like I taste your lips
And I'm very sorry...
Here's the album's one and only "gentle ballad", and a number of fans seem to be rather bored with this one, but I actually find it to be a welcome change, not for its tempo or mood, but simply because I'm surprised at the ability of the band to adapt to a more sensitive musical motif without losing their distinctiveness. (For that, this one's miles ahead of the dull "Blame It on the Tetons" from the previous album.) Spacey keyboards and a gentle, almost mournful guitar melody ease us in, and Isaac sings in a strikingly hushed tone about some sort of a conflict with a live-in lover, who is apparently spending the night in a motel somewhere after grabbing her things and leaving in a huff. He notes how damaging the insults were on both sides, notes that he's sorry, and starts to wax existential about what life would be like if one or the other of them had never been born. It's an unorthodox, but beautiful song that doesn't feel like it overstays its visit (ha, another bad pun!), and which features a striking guitar solo than glistens like starts in the clear night sky, getting more and more intense as the song builds to its eventual climax.

Steam Engenius
Both hassle men, half like a joke
Trying to make another joke laugh, haha
Stasisity's what you brought
Like a rickshaw getting pulled around by another rickshaw...
Now we're back to Modest Mouse's more off-kilter side, with a song that rattles along like the half-baked invention of a mad scientist, all syncopated and goofy with its rubbery bass licks and shards of guitar colliding into Isaac's crazy shouting. There are some good lyrical quips in here, but I can't make heads or tails out of most of it, because some of Isaac's lyrics fly by rather quickly and are a bit muffled. There are enough sounds crashing into each other that the song is far from boring, but its loose and chaotic nature can make it annoying and tempt me to skip it on certain days.

Spitting Venom
Well, you were talkin' soda pop, you talk it quite a lot
The opinions that I do not give are the opinions I ain't got...
By far the longest track on the album, this one clocks in at about eight minutes. It's quite cleverly performed, in terms of how the song morphs from just Isaac and an acoustic guitar into another electrified guitar boogey, eventually giving way to a mellow refrain with a regal trumpet fanfare. It really takes its time to go through all of these phases, so it's not as brilliant as "Parting of the Sensory", but it's not skippable either. It's mostly that the final coda repeats for way too long - they could have trimmed two minutes or so and the song wouldn't have been any worse for the wear. This song seems to mirror the conflict in "Little Motel", but in more of a sarcastic manner, describing two people who are putting sentences together with the intent of hurting one another in the meanest way possible, and bitterly declaring, "Well, it looks like you're the winner, I ain't gonna play no more, so let it drop." It's those "Let it drop's that provide the main hook which repeats throughout the song's various phases. It has that "stuck in the head" quality at times, but there are some other things I don't like about it - in particular, it seems unnecessary to say "We've got a knack for f*cked-up history" when they later censor themselves and say "messed-up history instead". If you're gonna swear, at least make it sounds like it needs to be there because no other words are strong enough to get the point across, instead of them being interchangeable with other words.

People as Places as People
Bark at the neighbors, and then bark at the door
Snifflin' and whimperin' for someone to know...
This one surfs along on a rather easygoing, mid-tempo rhythm, and a result it's the track that stands out the least on the entire album. You can guess at the analogy being made from the title, and I actually think it's interesting that Isaac is tying his memories of people to the places he lived in where they were part of his lives, and vice versa, making the places only significant because of who lives there. It's just performed in such a mild-mannered way that it feels a bit like filler. The Eastern-tinged solo in the middle is noteworthy just because it catches me off guard every time, but the rest of the song just sort of flatlines.

Invisible
I like the saline tea
Well, it's true that the moon can pull it back and forth away from me...
As the fadeout from the last song bleeds into a rolling drum riff that quickly sneaks up and turns into a quick, pounding rhythm helped out by another loud, zippy guitar riff that gives "We've Got Everything" a run for its money, we're relieved from the mediocrity and given one hell of a spirited performance to close the album with. I'm not so sure that this is a great song lyrically - it seems kind of random, first talking about the antics that people pull while driving in their cars and thinking they can't be seen or heard by the outside world, and later giving us all sorts of metaphors about the moon and the ocean and whatnot. It's fun to listen to, but seems to lack structure, and the ending totally leaves us hanging on the most unresolved note they can think of after the band repeats a few times, "We will be crushed by the ocean, but it will not get us wet." That's actually quite a curious line to ponder, so ending with it ensures that we'll want to know what the heck it means, but musically speaking, I'm totally expecting another song that I never get. It's neither a climax nor a comedown - just a cliffhanger.

While the back half gets a bit dodgy, I still find most of the album to be enough of a thrill ride that it's difficult to stay away from it for too long. Modest Mouse seems to be dedicated to giving their listeners a musical grab bag, and pretty much every style the band attempts, they manage to work their weird wonders with it, leaving only a few tracks that are too cumbersome or too ordinary for their own good. As long as you can handle the vocals, there's a good chance you'd enjoy this one if you enjoy the intersection where quirky weirdness and melodic indie pop meet. Even if you were somewhat put off by Good News for Those Who Love Bad News, I'd urge you to check this one out anyway.

ALBUM WORTH:
March into the Sea $1.50
Dashboard $2
Fire It Up $1.50
Florida $.50
Parting of the Sensory $1.50
Missed the Boat $1.50
We've Got Everything $1.50
Fly Trapped in a Jar $.50
Education $.50
Little Motel $1.50
Steam Engenius $.50
Spitting Venom $1
People as Places as People $.50
Invisible $1
TOTAL: $15.50

Band Members:
Isaac Brock: Lead vocals, guitar
Eric Judy: Bass, supplemental sounds
Johnny Marr: Guitar
Jeremiah Green: Drums
Joe Plummer: Percussion
Tom Peloso: Various supporting instruments

Website: http://www.modestmouse.com

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving