Modest Mouse
Good News For People Who Love Bad News

THE REVIEW

2004 was the year that marked the division among Modest Mouse fans: those who continued to love the eclecticism of leader Isaac Brock, and those who condemned the band for selling their soul to the devil (in this case, the record label Epic).
I prefer to be among the former, those who still appreciate the brilliance of the compositions from the Issaquah mice and who still hear sincerity in Isaac's eccentric voice.

There's no point in expecting a homogeneous and uniform work from these just twenty-somethings who grew up with Pixies, Violent Femmes, Pavement, and Tom Waits in their ears. "Good People..." is, like previous works, a suggestive and emotional album that needs repeated listening before it can directly touch the heart.
To kick things off, there is a trumpet played in an infantile and insolent manner, leading into one of the most delicate and captivating songs ever written by MM, The World At Large, where you can almost hear choirs with Beach Boys-like delicacy. Float On, the first single, arrives with its syncopated rhythm, Isaac's irresistible chant, which, to many's surprise, even managed to capture the attention of some radio directors in recent months.
"Brook's hangover has passed," we seem to think until the fourth track, where a veil of excessive pop (Vade Retro!) seems to have taken hold of our guys, but it's only a moment before falling into the crazy plots of the past; with Dig Your Grave, a ramshackle composition of only voice and banjo, and Bury Me With It which resembles a B-side of the best Tom Waits, one remains bewildered without any reference points.
At that point, the journey has truly begun; we will be enchanted by devilish nursery rhymes (This Devil's Workday), it will feel like walking among the tombs of Spoon River (Blame It On The Tetons), only to find ourselves by the warmth of a winter fire (One Chance and The Good Times Are Killing Me).

The beauty of Modest Mouse's compositions lies precisely in this, suggestive and emotional sudden changes of rhythm, melancholic guitars that suddenly go crazy, that organ and a trumpet that seem to have been forgotten for years in an attic, and Isaac Brock's loser voice, constantly shake you without giving you the chance to categorize them, to confine them in schemes and definitions.

An album not easy to assimilate on first listen, but in the long run, it takes you on that aimless journey you've always wanted to take.