Ello

wanna gang stalk w me ?

Album Rating: 2.0

isaac brock: new album from isaac brock and the modest mice

zak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtllWIiOTuA

"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."

Okay, so first up I'm not sure I get what you mean by "musical atmosphere." I took it to mean the tone and 'voice' of an album in its affect/mood/aesthetic, and the way this is, uh, musically supported. iow, what kind of record it "is" and what it feels like. MM are such a lyrically driven band both on paper and in delivery that I don't think it's possible to map out an adequate impression of their records without reference to whatever Isaac Brock is channelling on whichever album. Their delivery and atmosphere is deeply informed by this, even if they use similar songwriting approaches or arrangements from work to work - so, on that understanding the idea of looking at their "musical atmosphere" on a purely instrumental or stylistic basis is a dead end.

"musical vocabulary" would mean analysing and itemising the instrumentation, arrangements, stylisation etc in isolation, which I don't think represents the markedly discrete characters of GN... and WWD any more than it would for, say, Hospice and Burst Apart.

" it makes little sense not to make the focal point of a review the massive sonic departure"

I've yet to hear this, but trust you on it being a great enough stylistic departure to warrant hyperbolic statements to that end. However, you strongly imply that WWD's lack of stylistic departure related it to "the sphere of fan service and self-tributes". I agree with this re. STO for the most part, but given that WWD had a completely different tone to GN and that, as discussed, the GN sound was more in need of expansion and refinement than a full departure, I can't help but take it as a p crass construction of a convenient "ever since album X...until NOW" narrative that doesn't represent that leg of the band's career particularly accurately.

I think my sticking point is that while all your points for this record specifically are articulated clearly, this framing feels unbalanced enough to cast an awkward skew on the whole thing. It would be like if I wrote an otherwise sound piece on It's All Crazy... and headed it up with a line like "mewithoutyou have always been destined for folk songwriting and, if nothing else, their discography up til now has represented a series of decreasingly effective ways of running away from this" - like, that's a clear point but are we really listening to the same band here, or does it really represent their work outside of one point of contrast with the alb in question?

Re: all the discussion of brock's mental state: Meth ruins lives, if you're lucky enough to get clean you'll never really be the same and it'll haunt you til the day you die. Part of what made 90s MM compelling was the really frank accounts of the crystal crisis going on at the time, but that shit catches up with you one way or another, even when you're a famous indie musician

TLCW literally ends with him chanting "it's all nice on ice, alright". He's, y’know, not talking about frozen water there

Sorry to return to a fairly unpleasant topic but some of the comments around this really stuck in my craw and I wanted to make clear that I'm not trying to handwave anything away

Album Rating: 2.5

I guess in a way I’m just less disturbed by the “young addict” type of mental health issue than I am with whatever you call where Brock is now (even if I shouldn’t be). Like in the 90s/00s he clearly had issues but I wouldn’t say he was out of touch with reality; if anything he saw things very clearly in spite of his disturbed mental state, and he at least seemed self-aware of his struggles. At this point though there seems to be some kind of disconnect as he’s going down these conspiracy rabbit holes (which certainly seem informed by his mental state, and aren’t just emblematic of him being an idiot, or at least uneducated, as is the case with many others who hold crazy beliefs). Obviously he’s not too far gone yet, he’s pretty coherent in most of those comments in the AMA and other interviews I’ve seen recently. But it’s concerning.

Album Rating: 2.5

i'm only two songs in and yeah this is already wayyyyyyyyyyy better than strangers

Album Rating: 2.5

How can you make that judgement on only two songs

Album Rating: 2.5

because i can, roll the bones

Album Rating: 2.3 | Sound Off

@Kompys totally get what you're saying. ftr I wasn't referring to you with the handwaving comment earlier, I didn't think you specifically were doing that at all.



obv addiction is a complicated thing and it's not something to be taken lightly, I'm just a bit uncomfortable with people (here and other sites) treating it like some silly thing he's always done (or worse like PR for this album/a way to get clicks, jesus christ that's gross and makes me so uncomfortable)



I'm sure there's a whole combination of things involved in what's happening right now, and I'm not gonna speculate on a man's life when I don't know the specifics, but it's definitely worth saying at this point imo that he needs real help

Album Rating: 4.0

"Okay, so first up I'm not sure I get what you mean by "musical atmosphere.""

The atmosphere created by the music. Am I underthinking this one?



"MM are such a lyrically driven band both on paper and in delivery that I don't think it's possible to map out an adequate impression of their records without reference to whatever Isaac Brock is channelling on whichever album."

This is more of a fair argument IMO, although I still think it's possible to map out an adequate impression without knowing Brock's exact thoughts. Often what we cite as an artist's inspiration ends up being way off, so to expect full comprehension of an artist's motives as a minimum baseline for sufficient critique of anyone's music seems a bit unrealistic.



"looking at their "musical atmosphere" on a purely instrumental or stylistic basis is a dead end."

How is it a dead end to analyze the overarching atmosphere? I know you want it tied more closely to the lyrics, but is that really the chief disagreement here? That I talked too much about the music?



""musical vocabulary" would mean analysing and itemising the instrumentation, arrangements, stylisation etc in isolation"

I did this though, I mean at least to some extent. Perhaps not enough?



"but given that WWD had a completely different tone to GN and that, as discussed, the GN sound was more in need of expansion and refinement than a full departure, I can't help but take it as a p crass construction of a convenient "ever since album X...until NOW" narrative that doesn't represent that leg of the band's career particularly accurately."

This is entirely your opinion though, no? We didn't discuss it you did :-) I think WWD shrunk the sonic scope of GN and was an atmospheric regression (although I enjoyed a lot of the songwriting/catchiness more). I felt like each subsequent album after GN boxed their sound in more and more to a very specific "Modest Mouse Sound". I can say that knowing full well that WWD is one of my favorite albums of theirs while still acknowledging that it did nothing to branch out. Refining is all well and good, and WWD did that, but that's my point with Golden Casket. It tries new things with a creative appetite that MM hasn't demonstrated since their salad days.

Album Rating: 4.0

"It would be like if I wrote an otherwise sound piece on It's All Crazy... and headed it up with a line like "mewithoutyou have always been destined for folk songwriting"

I'm making the opposite point here. I'm saying MM recently pigeonholed their sound and this breaks them free of that. I get that your argument is that I'm generalizing their career trajectory, but I don't think that saying they got too comfortable with their sound over the course of 2-3 albums is necessarily untrue, and just because you disagree doesn't make it a generalization especially when I backed up my logic.



I think the bottom line is that you're a WWD stan and I'm not, so because I didn't delve into the minor intricacies of it prior to making any assertions about its standing in their discography, you felt the need to go to bat for it. And that's understandable, I'd do the same for some of my favorite records. I just can't help but feel like this has nothing to do with Golden Casket and everything to do with me defining WWD as a point of creative stagnancy within their career, which as much as I love the album, I still think that it is.

Album Rating: 4.0

You are all half-crazy aliens if you think that this album isn't better than Moon and Antarctica ;)

Arrogant Aardvark

Album Rating: 4.0

All you need is a modest mouse in a modest neighborhood

Album Rating: 2.0

at least they haven't fallen off as hard as dredg did

Album Rating: 3.2

Or Arcade Fire

Album Rating: 4.0

Every time I listen to this I love it more lol. I'm even coming around to the singles.

Acid Trip gets me so fucking hype and might be my favorite. Either that or We're Lucky

Or The Sun Hasn't Left

Or Lace Your Shoes

Or the closer

This is so great guys wtf

Album Rating: 2.5

That’s what I was gonna say Talons - I’m not loving this but at least it’s not an Everything Now.

Album Rating: 2.0

The Sun Hasn't Left is just the soundtrack to an unreleased Crash Bandicoot level