Modest Mouse /// “Parting Of The Sensory” /// We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
Only Modest Mouse could have released an album this awe-inspiring and have no one give a shit. Maybe it was the “Float On” hangover that kept people from really engaging with this one, but its stomp and sheen quickly made it my contrarian favorite out of their unimpeachable discography. In my head it completes the wasteland trinity, connecting The Lonesome Crowded West and previous infatuation The Moon & Antarctica: the desert in every direction, then ice, then the sea. But no multi-album narrative is needed to appreciate a death rattle hoedown like “Parting Of The Sensory.” Isaac Brock sings that “someday you will die and somehow something’s gonna steal your carbon,” and you can put that on my tombstone, thanks. What You Should Have Heard, 2000-2009 has up till now focused on newish bands that seemed to fall through the cracks, but someone has to stick up for such mastery of craft and lyric from a group that’s already been around the block. Don’t bother setting out the laurels; Modest Mouse won’t be resting on them anytime soon.
