It seems every decade or so since the Velvet Underground, a band comes along that at once has one foot firmly rooted in tradition, and simultaneously quietly pushes "guitar-based" rock a little further into the future. I'm thinking of bands like Television and Pavement, though there are obviously thousands of bands one could make a case for. The thing they have in common is that they're workhorses. Their innovation comes not so much through recognized and accepted artistic statements, but through sheer effort, purpose, and determination. It's the kind of brilliance that shines through in dirty, sweaty gigs half-filled with people who don't give a shit. Modest Mouse have entered this lineage.
Originally issued as an obscure Japanese EP, Up Records released this 12" featuring outtakes from the Moon and Antarctica sessions a few months back. There are four tracks here, three of which are previously unreleased. The Moon's "I Came as a Rat" (curiously subtitled "Long Walk Off a Short Dock") appears in the same form which graces the album. Still a great song, but let's concentrate on the new stuff.
"Willful Suspension of Disbelief" opens Side One, a product of the Mouses' newfound dreamy side. It would be rash to compare Isaac Brock to My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, but there's a similar aesthetic at work in the way the layers of guitars come together. Massed vocals sigh, "Everywhere everywhere everywhere," over Brock's stunningly effective poetry: "You could keep diggin' down and down/ A thousand graves down without turnin' around without finding hell/ You find you're digging up again."
The song segues smoothly into the title track, which encapsulates the thrust of Modest Mouse's new work. They share the ability with the Velvet Underground to captivate with just two chords for 7+ minutes, as Isaac Brock's precisely delayed guitarwork bring to mind both Lou Reed and Tom Verlaine. His style has little to do with technical chops, though; the appeal rests on his ability to effortlessly probe and search around the skeletal melody.
Filler as it is, "I Came as a Rat" seems a rather needless inclusion. However, it fits in well with the final track, "You're the Good Things," a song which initially recalls "old" Modest Mouse, with dry production and a sing-songy melody. Yet, the track takes so many twists and turns before its conclusion that it leaves no doubt that there's no looking back for this band.
The three years between The Lonesome Crowded West and The Moon and Antarctica obviously gave Modest Mouse an opportunity to prepare their ultimate statement of purpose. They've already produced an album that will serve as a line of demarcation between "before" and "after" for everything they do. One hopes that this EP will mark a return to the prolificacy of their first couple years; the only thing that could stop them now is a break from recording.
