The Voice

Modest Mouse, from left to right: Eric Judy, Tom Peloso, Johnny Marr, Isaac Brock, Joe Plummer, Jeremiah Green.

	We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank Modest Mouse Epic Records

• March Into the Sea (CD track 1)
• Parting of the Sensory (CD track 5)
• Spitting Venom (CD Track 12)

Even if it's doomed, this is the ship to be on. This solid follow-up to 2004's popular Good News For People Who Love Bad News is Modest Mouse's fifth studio album to date. We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank shows the band holding on to their roots but also illustrates the once-decidedly-non-mainstream group's acceptance of (gasp!) being popular. As its concept, the record spills a nautical tale of the band's journey beyond its own artistic and imaginative boundaries.

A major difference from prior works (apart from newly acquired Smith's guitarist Johnny Marr) is that We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank contains some of the prettiest songs Modest Mouse has released. Perhaps that's what must eventually emerge from a band that has been more often intrigued with the ugly side of life. Backing vocals and bright guitars showcase this growth, particularly on the slow, sweet tracks "Missed The Boat" and "Little Motel."

But it's not all star light and fairy dust. A sense of swelling madness propels "March Into the Sea," bobbing the tune back and forth between crazed and calm. Frontman Issac Brock bellows like a drunken sea captain at the helm of a ship that's cracked in half- or so he believes. He takes a long, drooling swig from a dirty bottle of liquor, violently smashes the glass container on the deck, and savagely spits at the sea a dare to try to take him down. That's just the beginning.

A bit of sunshine pokes through the storm clouds on "Dashboard," the first single from the album. This funky, very dance-able track combines signature Modest Mouse guitar chops and twiddles with inventive progressions, shoots across a windy ocean on a speed boat and briefly dips under the sea for a quiet, submarine look at the absurd scenery.

The titular vessel makes a stop on a southern peninsula for a strange trek through some kind of bizarre jungle. "Florida" highlights the band's idiosyncratic penchant for the avant garde, showcasing their innate ability to hodgepodge strangeness in sound into clever beauty.

This same beauty radiates from the death-centric "Parting of the Sensory," as Brock, at his most pessimistic, proves that rhyming words that don't rhyme isn't exclusive to Eminem: "Who the hell made you the boss?/ We placed our chips in all the right spots, but still lost/ Any shithead who had ever walked/ Could take the ship and do a much finer job/ This fit like clothes made out of wasps." Rather than focusing on something like the afterlife (as on "Ocean Breathes Salty" from their previous album), Brock instead remarks on life's theft of carbon from dead bodies. It's this mixing of a strangely catchy melody with a macabre story that makes Modest Mouse such a great band to listen to.

If Eminem is a minor influence on this album, so must be Grandmaster Flash. At times, "Fly Trapped In a Jar" sounds suspiciously similar to "Rapper's Delight." If Modest Mouse breaks up, maybe the guys will find a niche for themselves in the hip-hop scene.

Brock tends to write with regard to everyone, frequently referring to "we" as opposed to "me," but on the goofy "We've Got Everything," he does both. There's the sarcastic quip that "We've got everything down to a science/ So I guess we know everything," followed by a line about a passed-out drunk. In this satiric form, social commentary doesn't seem preachy; we're supposed to see the irony and figure things out for ourselves. In this way, Modest Mouse remains an indie band that's strikingly intelligent without being pretentious.

The dark, eight-minute polka epic "Spitting Venom" exhibits another aspect of songwriting that pervades Modest Mouse's style: that of a story about nothing. Lyrics that mean nothing ("If you truly knew the gravity/ You'd know which way to go") seem to fit perfectly in this song that speaks about the things we say to each other, but really doesn't say much of anything. At the midpoint, Brock gasps for breath as urgent ideas tumble out of his mouth as fast as he can articulate them. "I didn't know you kept track/ I didn't know there was a score/ Well it looks like you're the winner/ And I ain't gonna play no more."

The song concludes with four minutes conducted by apologetic horns and ringing bells. The encouraging words, "Cheer up, baby, it wasn't always quite so bad," repeat several times, but they're definitely not introspective; things have never been better for the band. Even if their fictional boat plunges to the bottom of the ocean, Modest Mouse will most certainly float on.

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