Album Rating: 1.5

jesus some of those ama answers are scary as fuck

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Album is so fucking much better than it's getting rated here, some of you people are just goofs.

Album Rating: 2.5

Well I listened to this three or more times today so there's that...

Album Rating: 2.5

^nice dig

I listened to this twice and feel almost no desire to come back to it. I'll probably give it one more spin in the coming days but I think this 2.5 is here to stay

I download

Album Rating: 3.5

The Sun Hasn't Left weirdly sounds like a Twenty One Pilots song

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

I guess I can put MM in the spent force category now. Still, can't sniff at 3 classics

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

"Yknow what would have owned? Swapping stars are projectors for night on the sun on TM&A."



Stars are projectors is like the centrepiece of the album, that is such a weird suggestion

Album Rating: 2.5

Very weird suggestion agreed

Album Rating: 2.5

I think Strangers suffered from having a slightly ‘off’ poorly sequenced patch early, tracks 3-5, just killed momentum and I think that’s enough to upset a lot of listeners



The best part of this album is tracks 1-5, very traditional, only really matched by the last two songs which are also not bad. The track order helps promote this one where it crippled Strangers.



Imagine ‘The Sun…’, ‘Laces’ and ‘Leave a Light On’ were tracks 3-5 on this one - would have been game over

Album Rating: 2.0

walking and running is such a transparent kyp malone impression but also it sucks

The few lyrics I've heard off this (singles aside) are painfully, painfully, PAINFULLY face-value dad rock. Like wow.

I'm honestly a bit scared to listen to this :/

Album Rating: 2.5

Ranked/Rated:



1. Fuck Your Acid Trip [3.5] hear me out, the verses sound like the most MM attitude part of the album, a bit ‘Tiny Cities’, the chorus is a strange fit but it’s the smoothest pop chorus on an album that seems to want to write pop choruses.



2. We’re Lucky [3.5] has grown on me a bit, unremarkable in a lot of ways but does build/progress and the later instrumentation additions work well.



3. Back to the Middle [3.5] other than the verses on the opener this song sounds the most like the MM we know, the slightly ploddy 90s alt riff I don’t find amazing but overall an ok Mouse tune.



4. Wooden Soldiers [3.5] mostly average until the 3:30 marker then it develops into something worthwhile even if it feels a teeny bit calculated to be ‘the transcendent emotional moment’ of the album.



5. Walking and Running [3] workaday indie



6. We are Between [3] workaday indie



7. Japanese Tree [3] workaday indie



8. Never Fuck [2.5] doesn’t work



9. Transmitting Receiving [2] yes, Brock has a cool accent and pronounces interesting vocab nicely



10. Lace Your Shoes [2] boring subject matter, boring arrangement, plods



11. The Sun Hasn’t Left [1.5] awful



12. Leave a Light On [0.5] contender for worst MM song, affected vocals during the verses and inane lyrics are poison, generic cruddy chorus with annoying guitar work in the background, terrible

Album Rating: 2.5

very worried about this but will listen later today

Gave up on it. Shite.

Album Rating: 4.0

"I don't think that Modest Mouse are the kind of band where it works to split ends over written content and musical atmosphere (as opposed to musical vocabulary)"

Not trying to keep this debate going at this point honestly lol but this one confused me. If you're not splitting ends over the music or the lyrics what's left? I'll need to be enlightened as to what you mean by musical vocabulary.



"the tone of all their records is deeply lyrically informed, and I think that most of their criticism and general reception acknowledges this"

General reception yes, critical reception I doubt very much haha. I saw a review somewhere that was like 7 sentences long and called this the greatest achievement of the year.

Also I'm a huge lyrics guy myself (as you probably know from our discussions on mwY), but to me it makes little sense not to make the focal point of a review the massive sonic departure esp. when that's what the band has done. I could have worked in more lyrics just for the hell of it (I did quote a handful of lines), but from my vantage point they do nothing to inform this nor detract from the experience. Why delve into that, or musical vocabulary or whatever, when it's the music itself that has changed and is the most interesting/divisive thing about the album anyway?



And yeah Issac Brock has issues, not to mention a family, hope he's okay and/or gets some help. Dude sounds off his rocker.

actually quite like this

oh man isaac is schizophrenic

The man is a wanker

zak! my friend