I feel like, as much as having writers block, Modest Mouse/Brock became too preoccupied with how their music sounded and making some kind of musical evolution after We Were Dead. It was then even more baffling that after 7 years of experimentation and Big Boi studio sessions and whatever that Strangers to Ourselves felt like theyād come full circle and landed on a tired version of everything that theyād done before, that they didnāt really want to fully commit to either.
Fifteen years later, I feel like theyāve actually arrived on a sound here that sounds like a natural (if not particularly wild) evolution of Modest Mouse circa the mid-00s. More psychedelic, more playful, fewer guitars, more instruments crammed in but essentially the same whole. I think what itās missing are great songs. You donāt really measure Good News or We Were Dead by the weaker moments, but the standouts, of which there are many as good as anything theyāve ever done. There arenāt many here even if there are plenty of songs that wouldnāt be out of place on those records.
I hope they can follow it up relatively rapidly like they (once again) promised and forget about worrying what their music sounds like and just go back to writing songs, now theyāve landed somewhere they sound comfortable.
