Modest Mouse “No One's First and You're Next”Epic Records, 2009
There are a few times in my life that I would classify as “glory moments”. These are times that I was fortunate enough to experience something extraordinarily cool. These are the moments that you immediately think to yourself “one day I'm going to tell my kids about this.” These moments are never to be contrasted with a list of personal triumphs (like getting married or finding out you will be a dad... those are on a completely different plane). Here are a few of these experiences:
1. I met and interviewed KRS-One while working at a TV station in Tallahassee
2. I sat in a recording studio while Cody Bonette was tracking a demo for “Petty” for the final As Cities Burn record
Hell or High Water3. In 2004 I got pulled onstage at an Against Me! concert (during the last song, “We Laugh at Danger And Break All The Rules”) by the bass player after he saw that I sang every word to every song.
4. I saw Modest Mouse in a very small venue in St. Augustine (along with my future wife and good friend) about 3 months before
Good News for People Who Like Bad News came out. There were probably 150 people in the room.
Modest Mouse is the classic indie band of our generation. Since their formation in the early 1990's, they have been a major player in the direction of the genre (not to mention the cowboy scene). They have gone through major musical transformations over the years, but have always stayed true to the spastic and abrasive sounds that they originally became popular for.
No One's First and You're Next is a collection of Singles and B-Sides that have been released over the last 4 years. It is not a proper follow up to
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, but functions as a mid-day snack between records.
Modest Mouse has progressed a lot in the time-span that this collection covers. The songs represent a solid cross-section of where they have come from (since 2004... not 1994), and where they are going. Notable tracks include “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” and “The Whale Song” which both harken back to the raw indie pop sounds of
The Moon and Antarctica. “Sattelite Skin” has a more polished feel (like “Float On” or “Dashboard”) and seems to have been one of the more recently-written songs on the album.
No One's First... produces few exceptional moments. However, for the people that can't help but purchase anything that Issac Brock touches (yeah, I've got the Ugly Cassanova record), it takes an important place in the complete Modest Mouse discography.
(6.5/10)
