Modest Mouse - Missed the Boat + Dramamine

So yesterday the new Modest Mouse album leaked. I feel like I've been waiting forever for it, especially as how the initial release date was aimed for October 2006. Also I wasn't sure why I was so excited for it, epecially how their last album Good News for People Who Love Bad News was in my opinion a piece of crap apart from a few select tracks. So with the new album We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank I was not only surprised that I didn't hate it, but I found myself really enjoying it. My personal favorite song from it after my first two listens is called "Missed the Boat," and if you'd choose one track to best represent Johnny Marr's influence on the new record, this would be the one. Say what you will about the Healers, Marr is kicking ass right here. While We Were Dead... is still of course not on part with Modest Mouse's masterpiece The Lonesome Crowdest West (a record that holds a firm place in my top 10 ever) I feel it's what Modest Mouse should be sounding like in 2007. I applaud them for not just rehashing their past material as well as taking a step back from the uninspired gloss of Bad News for People Who Love Good Music.

Modest Mouse - Missed the Boat



For a second mp3 I'm talking it back to the era of '96 - '97, Modest Mouse's prime. "Dramamine" opens their 1996 release This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About. It's a fantastic song protypical of the "classic" Modest Mouse- extended dueling guitar instrumentals, plenty of string bends, driving bass and drums, plus Issac Brock's irregular vocals and philosophical (mostly existentialist) lyrics.

Modest Mouse - Dramamine

"Travelling swallowing Dramamine
Feeling spaced breathing out listerine
I'd said what I'd said that I'd tell ya
And that you'd killed the better part of me
If you could just milk it for everything
I've said what I'd said and you know what I mean
But I still can't focus on anything
We kiss on the mouth but still cough down our sleeves"

Issac Brock once said that the main reason he entered the music scene was to try and write an album as good as the Pixies' Doolittle. Impossible? Perhaps- but the Lonesome Crowded West certainly would stick it out for a few rounds. The Doolittle of the 90's though... I could support that claim.