In "Bukowski," one of the more contemplative songs on Modest Mouse's latest release "Good News for People Who Love Bad News," singer-guitarist Isaac Brock tries to separate himself from the Beat Generation's lecherous barfly turned poet Charles Bukowski. "God who'd wanna be such an a**hole?" Brock wonders in his gritty, nervous voice. While I can't comment on the content of "Buk's" character, the course of his career puts him closer to Brock and the boys than the quintet may like.
Bukowski had a nice run in the 60s and 70s, often selling out college auditoriums with his explicit, dirty-jokes-from-grandpa style poetry readings, but he just wasn't William Burroughs, and "Post Office," perhaps his best-known work, couldn't hold a candle to "On the Road." While Modest Mouse isn't as bad as all that, they are certainly a band that has always been in the shadow of giants. Comparisons to Pavement, the Pixies and the Talking Heads are ubiquitous and apt, but next to these bands, the Issaquah, Washington group's successes have been, well, modest.
That said, "Good News," the band's fourth major release, may be the album to bring Modest Mouse into the light. Spreading over a wide range of styles and ideas -- nothing new for the band -- the 16 tracks still maintain a cohesiveness that suggests an older and wiser, if eccentric, rodent.
A two-note intro from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band opens the album, but quickly gives way to tender descending guitar chords in "The World At Large." Brock's voice soon joins in, discussing departure and travel, typical Mouse themes: "Walked away to another plan. / Gonna find another place / maybe one I can stand." The rest of the album is no less restless: There's a great deal about modern world that makes Brock a little uneasy. "All those people that you know, / floatin' in the river are logs," he snarls with a little more help from the Dirty Dozen in the Tom Waits imbued "This Devil's Workday." "Black Cadillacs" finds him observing that we are "so pleased with ourselves for using so many verbs and nouns. / But we are all still dumb, dumb, dumber than the dirt, dirt, dirt on the ground." In "One Chance," Brock worries, in an ironic recalling of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" Pumpkins, that he is "just a box in a cage."
Other notable tracks provide no solace. "The Ocean Breaths Salty," one of the album's most musically successful songs, can't shake the feeling that the more things change the more they stay the same. "Bury Me With It," with equal parts funk and thrash, agrees: "We are hummingbirds who've lost the plot and we will not move," Brock sighs. "Blame It on the Tetons" also looks for answers to the band's troubling existential questions, this time with a lovely acoustic guitar and fiddle. Concluding the album is the Flaming Lips collaboration "The Good Times Are Killing Me," which features Brock dubiously admitting that he needs "more sleep than coke or methamphetamines."
Still, the band finds a reason to get up in the morning. Brock works himself into a frenzy over ska-like chops in "Dance Hall," declaring that he is "gonna dance all Dance Hall everyday." "Float On," a sure-fire single that wouldn't be too out of place on "London Calling," even finds Brock giving optimism a try. "We'll all float on OK" he sings, and the dare-you-not-to-strut beat makes you think he just might be right.
While Modest Mouse may never achieve the monolithic status of its greatest influences, this latest effort takes a step out of the shadows and onto original ground. Although obviously world-weary and tempest-tossed (Brock admits that "every night turns out to be a little more like Bukowski"), the Mouse has established itself as a band that is here to stay. Anyway, for all his quirky angst and sloppily beautiful riffing, Steve Malkmus (Pavement) has yet to achieve the same level of orchestral nuance and complexity across an entire album. Make no mistake, "Good News for People Who Love Bad News" is no "Surfer Rosa," but, then again, at the time, The Pixies were no Talking Heads. Who knows what the future holds? Isaac Brock definitely doesn't know. But one thing is sure -- the new album is good news, regardless of what kind of person you are.
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