Latest on twitter:
a considered opinion: modest mouse - no one’s first and you’re next ep
Modest Mouse’s latest release, the No One’s First And You’re Next EP, puzzles me. I don’t mean it’s a particularly strange record that challenges any of my musical sensibilities or preconceptions or anything like that. In fact, the EP is by and large a rather pleasant, undemanding affair: most of its songs gently roll along at a mid-tempo, devoid of any jarring sudden changes. What I don’t understand about this release is precisely who it’s intended for. Consisting of eight previously released B-sides from the band’s two previous albums, Good News For People Who Love Bad Newsand We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, it surely can’t be intended for die-hard Modest Mouse completists; they will already have heard these songs. I’m not entirely sure how well the EP will go over with more mainstream audiences, either. As I said before, the majority of the material here is rather easy on the ears, bouncing innocuously from one track to the next. However, that’s precisely where the EP’s greatest weakness lies. These songs, with some exception, sound exactly like what they are: B-sides. None of the songs here are so radically different from everything on the band’s two previous releases that they couldn’t have been included therein. For the most part, they simply sound like they got left on the cutting room floor, and for good reason.
The EP isn’t completely without its charms, though. You’ve doubtless already heard of “King Rat” for its Heath Ledger-directed video, and the song itself is a dark, stomping affair that strikes a perfect balance between protracted swells and sudden crashes. The strengths of “King Rat” are what actually serve to highlight the weaknesses of the rest of the EP. While the verses in “King Rat” have a similar mid-tempo, nonchalant feel to “Satellite Skin” or “History Sticks To Your Feet”, “King Rat” succeeds where they fail by building momentum and actually going somewhere – it’s the transitions between the horn- and banjo-heavy verses and the brooding, snarling chorus built around Isaac Brock’s repeated refrains of “Deep water, deep water” that lend the song its sense of urgency. “The Whale Song” is the other standout here, with a chorus built around a line that showcases Brock’s knack for hinting at feelings of paranoia and self-doubt:
“I know I was a scout I should have found a way out
So everyone could find a way out”
Surrounding the chorus are two long instrumental passages that recall both the crashing waves of “Ocean Breathes Salty” and the dark isolation of that runs throughoutThe Moon and Antarctica. I don’t think I’m being overly effusive when I say that either of these two songs hold up against some of the best numbers on the band’s previous two albums (and stand head and shoulders above some of the weaker ones, I’m looking in your general direction “Missed The Boat”…). However, outstanding though they may be, they don’t make up for the faults of the rest of the EP. While none of the songs here are particularly bad, most of them aren’t particularly good either. Since everything here has already been released in some form or another, one can’t help but wonder whether No One’s First And You’re Nextis just an attempt by Modest Mouse’s label to generate some cash while the band works on its next proper release. Puzzling, indeed.
Some American DOES NOT RECOMMEND Modest Mouse’s No One’s First And You’re Next EP
