No One's First, And You're Next (Digital)

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Modest Mouse

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With No One's First, And You're Next, Modest has given it's fans something to tide us over until a new album is released. A lot of reviews I've been reading online have not been to kind to this release. It's as if they don't get that this a b-sides collection, and are treating it like a full fledged album. Something that surprises me about these so called "music critics", is that none of them have mentioned the track I Have It All(most). It has already been released twice before. Once on the Float On single and the other as a bonus track on the dual disc version of Good News. While it's a great track, it is my only complaint about the album. The rest of the album is great, I agree with the previous reviewer on that you can tell which tracks came from which sessions. And suprisingly some of the tracks do have that older Modest feel to them. My advice if you love Modest as much as I do, pick up this album. I'm sure you will love it.

I'm not sure I could tell you precisely why, but I just don't particularly like it. It sounds like Isaac Brock + some other guys, not like Modest Mouse. Part of the difference between those two may just be the mix, with the vocals too high and a lot of the interesting stuff going on instrumentally buried a bit, but I don't think that's it. "The Whale Song" is a good example; nice fun instrumental stuff for the first 3 minutes, but the minute Isaac pops in everyone else stops doing anything particularly interesting. It's like they've decided engaging instrumental music and Isaac's vocals can't coexist at the same time, so whenever Isaac's around they become competent but somewhat bland accompanists. Since Isaac's present for most of the album, this doesn't work out too well. The result isn't really -bad-, but not something I particularly want to listen to.

If you like Modest Mouse for Isaac Brock alone, you'll probably like this. If you take a more holistic view and see Isaac as an accomplished vocalist who only truly shines when his vocals are enmeshed in great instrumental music, you probably won't. The same goes for "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank", and I'm in the second camp, obviously.