Modest Mouse - The Golden Casket

Alternative – Released June 25, 2021 – 12 songs, 50 mins

REID’s album drop

This band will forever remind me of high school. We had a modern-day jukebox in the cafeteria with a bunch of random albums and one of the best was ‘Good News for People Who Love Bad News’. Let’s just say the teachers weren’t in a rush to spend money on new tunes so ‘Float On’ and ‘The Ocean Breathes Salty’ were played to death. Let’s see what Modest Mouse has to offer with their brand new release, The Golden Casket.

REID

As noted in the album drop, I’ve been following Modest Mouse since their 2004 release, Good News for People Who Love Bad News. I’ve always thought they have a very, I’ll go with ‘experimental’, sound. There aren’t many records you’ll throw on and say ‘these guys/gals remind me of Isaac Brock and the crew’. And that’s a good thing. Variety is the spice of life and MM offer that with each release. 

The Golden Casket opens very strong. Fuck Your Acid Trip is a paranoia-filled jam with an unforgettable riff that got stuck in my head after one listen. It’s followed by We Are Between, the type of song Modest Mouse excels at. How about that line, ‘…we are between, yeah we are, somewhere between dust and the stars’? They follow up the comedy of the opener with a philosophical track making me stare off in the distance wondering what life’s all about. *Insert gif of Roz and Lundi in deep thought with the math equations*. I couldn’t skip on by We’re Lucky without mentioning their random use of horns they continue to bring back. It’s actually kind of annoying but it’d be weird without it in there somewhere at this point. Kinda like Stone Cold Steve Austin’s ‘WHAT?’ phase. The album rolls along with songs ranging from weird and peculiar but oddly satisfying. They're so interesting musically and Brock's vocals make them unique. Other standout tracks for me include The Sun Hasn’t Left and the closer, Back to the Middle. 

2021’s version of Modest Mouse is as random, strange and creative as their past. They’ve always done things their own way and it’s admirable. The Golden Casket continues this trend. 

Favourite Track: We Are Between

Overall Rating: 7.6/10

LUNDI

That noise you’re hearing is not a child screaming and wailing on pots and pans in the kitchen, it’s Issac Brock and Modest Mouse returning to the Alt Rock scene with their first album in 6 years, ‘The Golden Casket.’

The album is filled with all the bells and whistles you can imagine. I think they even went to my mom’s house and got my grade 4 recorder for this one. Aside from your basic instruments Brock and his 6 (!!!) other band members pull out everything in their bag of tricks to make what amounts to a calculated but messy progression of music. Nothing is ever the exact same or duplicated across tracks and musically it surprises with repeat listens. There’s certainly no ‘Float On’ here but you can’t blame the band for not trying. 

Speaking of the 6 band members, 2 of them left the band days before the album release. This writer thinks they both got sick of Brock’s songwriting and singing ruining their work. Seriously though, is there a song on here you can sing along to? Does anyone actually understand Brock? He makes this album much too convoluted. It’s impossible to really understand the themes or messages he’s trying to portray, and maybe that’s the point, but it just doesn’t work. 

Someone please get me the instrumental for this album. It would make for some awesome background work music. As far as the real thing though, I’ll very likely never listen to ‘The Golden Casket’ again. 

Rating: 6.1/10

Fave Tune: We Are Between

ROZ

Modest Mouse: a band that I listened to a lot when I was younger, yet one that I haven't checked out in a long, long time. Needless to say, I was very excited when I found out that their first album in six years would be getting reviewed this week….oh how naive I was.

Now let me preface with this, I didn’t hate everything. We Are Between is a solid jam and Leave A Light On is great too. I don’t know if that’s just the high school nostalgia kicking in but either way, these are both great tracks and I’ll probably revisit them in the future.

Alright, now that I have that out of the way: let me vent about everything else on this album. Right out of the gate the sound is all over the place. Fuck Your Acid Trip literally sounds like two or three songs stitched together using Elmer’s glue and scotch tape - like I get that tempo changes and tonal shifts are very much a thing but this ain’t it (although the hook that kicks in at 1:30 is prettyyy catchy). As I work my way down the song list I start thinking, “are they making this strange and trippy just for the sake of it?”, like that guy you see at a party who won’t shut up about how high he is. No one wants to hang out with that guy.

We’re Lucky just sounds downright lazy from both a production and lyrical standpoint (and what the hell is the trumpet doing? Good God man), Transmitting Receiving is just plain nonsense, The Sun Hasn’t Left has an obnoxious xylophone in it (I think I found my new indie band name), and Never Fuck A Spider On The Fly, I mean, I think the name speaks for itself. I had that one written in my notes as “Bad And Also Weird” and I honestly don’t think I need to expand further on that.

After an experience that could only be described as a fifty minute and twenty eight second fever dream, Modest Mouse offers a psychedelic experience through twelve songs that I don’t think will be for everyone - that list of people unquestionably includes me. Let’s just hope that this new sound that Modest Mouse is going for just floats the fuck on and never comes back.

Favourite Track: We Are Between

Overall Rating: 4.4/10