Score: Modest Mouse
No One’s First and You’re Next (EP)
by Kevin Norris
Modest Mouse’s newest EP “No One’s First and You’re Next” picks up from where 2005’s “Good News For People Who Love Bad News” and 2007’s “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank” left off, mainly due to most of the songs being leftover b-sides from those albums. Because of this there isn’t a significant difference in sound from that period, but thats okay because the musical buffet of fuzzy guitars, thumping bass lines, and chaotic bark of Isaac Brock are all here.
Opening with “Satellite Skin” Modest Mouse sets forth with a poppy guitar jam that recalls the likes of prior hits “Float On” and “Dashboard”. Although both “Satellite Skin” and the following track “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” are fun, upbeat summertime anthems, it isn’t until the rustic banjos of “Autumn Beds” and sinister “The Whale Song” that the EP really begins to gain its momentum. Being the most ambitious track “The Whale Song” provides the EP with an eerie feeling of being lost in an ocean of grooving bass lines, slurry guitars that sound like the crying echoes of whales, and pleading grumble of Brock to “find a way out.” Continuing with ambiguity “Perpetual Motion Machine” is jumpy song full of brassy wails from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who are also featured on the moody, eccentric “King Rat.”
While overall the EP is an entertaining listen for both old and new fans, it fails to be a progressive leap forward, however, it is nice to have something to tie us over in between LP releases.
*** 1/2 out of 5
