Good news for people who love music from the Pacific Northwest: Modest Mouse just released their first independent album in nearly 30 years and possibily thier best yet. On “An Eraser and a Maze”, Isaac Brock and his bandmates look around with confusion at how they got this far and question what their band’s identity boils down to. For Brock, that meant leaning into his gut instincts and seeing where they lead him. The murky rhythms return, as do Brock’s caterwauling wail and ragged guitar riffs. Surprises lay in store, too, including Janet Weiss drumming on “Look How Far…” and a burst of aughts indie rock on “Speak ‘N Spell (Or Not)” that you’d be forgiven for mistaking as a “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank” cut.
A physics theory says past, present, and future coexist, and that’s the best lens for “An Eraser and a Maze”, which feels like every era of Modest Mouse happening at once. Guided by Isaac Brock’s instinct-first process, the album is both familiar and alien, warm and cold. It stretches across the band’s sonic history, from propulsive classics to stripped, raw moments, while carrying an undercurrent of mortality and loss that refuses easy optimism.
Washington state artist Isaac Brock, better known under his stage name Modest Mouse, is back with his (and the band’s) eighth studio album and the first in five years. Following up “Golden Casket” (2021), things have changed somewhat behind the scenes: it’s the band’s first independent release since 1997’s “The Lonesome Crowded West”.
Initially it was meant to be an EP for his side project Ugly Casanova but he saw potential in expanding it out to a full LP for the day job and let’s be glad Brock did because the results are staggering. The kaleidoscopic sonic maze of wonder that is the ‘Picking Dragons’ Pockets’ has a bombastic, celebratory feel that makes it a balm for the harder edges in our world. If pop music is about escape and joy, Modest Mouse understand this better than most in crafting sounds that truly toy with your sense of place and launch you into another realm.
The passage of time itself is an illusion. And, well, the same could be true of “An Eraser And A Maze” — because you can indeed hear every era of Modest Mouse coexisting at once on it. Past, present and, yes, future. For example: “Absolutely Necessary Never” is a bass and synth-driven journey that takes the DNA of “Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes“, removes a bit of the apocalypse, and snorts it all in a 1980s club bathroom. It also happens to be a new Modest Mouse classic.
The Fat Angel Sings 