Modest Mouse: No One's First and You're Next

Still receiving most of their attention for 'driving their car into a cop-car the other day' and ruminating that 'sometimes life's okay', Modest Mouse have gone and ensured that they never capitalise upon "Float On's" success.

While the public was hungry for intelligent, life-affirming danceable indie music, the humble mice checked that box, scrubbed it off the board and swiftly moved along to We Were Dead's... sprawling, hazy, stream-of-conciousness high-concept meanderings. Modest Mouse, in short, are a band who have never followed the metaphorical guidelines of music and progression.

Considering the former sentiments, it shouldn't widen your eyes if we inform you that the E.P No One's First and You're Next is similarly rebellious to convention.

While technically an E.P by name, at thirty-three minutes-plus in length, we're pretty much in album territory here. Free of the pressure to paint on a grand canvas, the end-result is a much tighter, pin-sharp focus on what's truly great about the band. Also true is the fact that this is Modest Mouse's trash pile, the cast-offs and b-sides from their previous two albums. If the sprightly animated cartoons of the past few decades have taught us anything though, it's that you should never discount the rejected underdogs, and possibly also that you should never let Phil Collins write your soundtrack.

If we could point to a song and ask "can we have some more please Sir?" it would be at the feet of "The Whale Song". One of the rare times that MM get to explore the post-rock and psychedelia-inclined side of their schizophrenic brain, it's placement anywhere other than front-and-centre of a single release is bewildering. Beginning like a broken toy, struggling to find its tune as it whirls chaotically, cogs falling, we are taken on a tour of the oft hazardous ocean, culminating in a blaze of wailing guitars, blasting their mating call throughout the sea. It teeters through wave after wave of searing squeals before finally relenting. That sound you hear is your heart banging on your chest, begging for release before the detonation occurs.

This being the product of flawed humanity, there are also lesser endeavours dotted around the record. Disappointment is rarely an option, but the creases do begin to show over time. While in "Autumn Beds" there are no moments which beckon critical finger-pointing, it does lack direction and grows tiresome with repetition. The spotlight also shines unfavourably upon "Perpetual Motion Machine", when the song pleads to be let off the leash and leap into unfamiliar territory and over-clocked decibels, instead the track is allowed to wane and then wither just when further momentum is called for.

As someone once said of George Carlin "he throws away jokes better than most people's A-list material", so we could say for Modest Mouse also. There is nary a whiff of substandard material anywhere on the album, sure there are missteps, but MM have those on their albums proper also. This will do more than simply rebuff the thirst for the next 'proper' full-length, this is practically a stand-alone work, worthy of incessant admiration.

Break out the champagne once more then, for anyone appreciative of this band's unique brand of insanity won't want to miss boarding when this ship sets sail. Why can't we escape the nautical language with this band? Answers on a coastguard to...

* With additional writing by Brad Kelly