Saturday, September 5, 2009

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

I love reading album reviews, I love writing, and I love music. Why not, right? It’s a good way to kill some time and further my already impeccable writing skills to god-like status. So yeah, the format will be somewhat consistent: I’ll elaborately expound upon the album in the bulk of the review, and then I’ll devise some kind of quantifiable scale by which to rate albums. This way, people can waste their life and read through my often jumbled musings, or just skip to the scale and get my opinion on the album in four to five seconds. So, here goes nothing…

MY FIRST ALBUM REVIEW

Well, not really. I reviewed Alive 2007, Daft Punk’s live album, about a year ago for some class. But this will be my first review of an album that I post to the general public, and I can say whatever I damn well please.

I selected a somewhat unusual album for my first review. It isn’t my favorite album, it isn’t by my favorite band, and it doesn’t contain my favorite song. It’s a slightly dated work, released March 20th, 2007. The album is We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, by Modest Mouse.
Let me first start off by saying I’m really not a huge Modest Mouse fan. I enjoyed their singles and I thought they were decent when I saw them at Merriweather, but I’ve never taken time to sit down and listen to their music. I’ve never wheeled through my iPod and said, “today is a day for Modest Mouse!” They’re just another band to me.

That has changed.

The album starts off with a bang. “March Into the Sea” is a chaotic, aggressive introduction that serves a single purpose: to prepare the listener for the rest of the album. Beyond that, the song is simply album filler, which isn’t a bad thing. If you listen to the album as a whole, the song does its job brilliantly. If you just listen to the song, it would be comparable to reading just the beginning of a book. It’s designed to make you want more. Designed to make you want to continue reading, or listening in this case. Overall song grade: 2.5/5

From there, we jump into “Dashboard”, the first single to come off the album. It’s an undeniably catchy tune, built upon a pretty formulaic song structure. It’s the song that Modest Mouse released for the radio to hook new listeners, as it’s essentially your average Modest Mouse song. Nothing too flashy, but enough pizzazz to get your toes tapping. I must admit, I did enjoy the “oriental” style strings mixed in throughout the song. They added a bit of depth and a breath of fresh air into an otherwise standard song. Overall song grade: 3.5/5

Next up is the first dud on the album. “Fire It Up” is a repetitive, monotonous, boring piece of junk. The quick-paced drum machine in the beginning is interesting, but once that is pushed into the background, the song is stripped of any redeeming qualities. I’m not sure why Modest Mouse felt saying “fire it up, fire it up” over and over and over again was necessary. Seriously, the only lamer title would have been “Take It to the Limit”, but I guess Hinder already nabbed that. In the war of songs titled “Fire It Up”, Black Label Society is the winner. Overall song grade: 1.5/5

Modest Mouse gets slightly back on track with a decent filler song. “Florida” is a scrappy song with a bit of character to it. It’s nothing extraordinary, but after “Fire It Up”, this song shines all the brighter. It’s not a song that I’d specifically want to listen to, but it certainly isn’t one I’d skip past either. Overall song grade: 3/5

After a bit of a slow start, the album skyrockets with “Parting of the Sensory”. The first great song on the album, this song boasts absolutely spectacular lyrics and a well thought out structure. The build-up is flawlessly executed, with layer upon layer being added as the song progresses. Everything gradually gets louder and more forceful until it boils over into the fantastic ending. It’s a wonderful change of dynamic, from a quiet, slow acoustic rendition into a rambunctious, lively ending. With the guitar twang, the fiddle, and the clapping, it has a bit of an Irish folksy feel, a complete 180 from the beginning of the song. Pure win. Overall song grade: 4.5/5

This is the point on the album where we start getting into slower songs that pack less power than the first half of the album. “Missed the Boat” was the second single off the album, although I feel it deserved to be the first. It’s a very simplistic song, with reserved percussion and a very nice underlying acoustic lick. It has a laid back feel to it, which I think is a strong suit for Modest Mouse. It’s simple, but it works perfectly. Overall song grade: 4/5

The album breaks its two song streak and retreats back into decency. “We’ve Got Everything” is a slightly better than average song, but I think I’d like it a lot more without the back-up vocals from John Mercer of The Shins. I love The Shins, but he bothers me in this song. The end of the song drags on for a bit too long for my taste, but it isn’t a song breaker. Overall song grade: 3/5

The next song, “Fly Trapped In a Jar”, is probably the oddest song on the album. It really doesn’t fit the album in any capacity, and to me, it isn’t good enough on its own to merit a spot. I probably would have ditched this song and saved it for another album where it fit better. Overall song grade: 2/5

“Education” is the best filler song on the album, but it’s filler nonetheless. It’s a little more creative than the other fodder songs, but it doesn’t quite reach any replay value. it feels like a song that had a good idea behind it, but wasn’t carried out well, or maybe got a little overcomplicated. Overall song grade: 3/5

“Little Motel” is a solid song. It was the third single released off the album, providing a polar opposite to “Dashboard”. A little lyrically repetitive, but it’s instrumentally gorgeous, especially the small crescendo near the end of the song. It retains its slow tranquility, but by upping the volume the song avoids any staleness. For a slow, quiet song, it really is good. Overall song grade: 3.5/5

“Steam Engenius” is another really weird song. I like the funk undertones, but all the “woo-wooing” kills it for me. Also, the bullhorn in the choruses isn’t implanted right in my opinion. I think just straight vocals would have worked better. Also, the car horn right before the chorus could possibly be the most grating noise ever. Remedy all these problems, and this would be a pretty good song. Overall song grade: 2.5/5

The only word I have for the next song is fucking. “Spitting Venom” is just fucking. It’s so good, I cannot think of an adjective that does it justice. I know I said this album does not contain my favorite song, but this song is certainly in my top 50. The lyrics are incredible. The structure is genius. You get the folksy acoustic beginning, which spontaneously explodes into the fast, heavy, and aggressive middle passage, which dissolves right back into the folksy bit with a little more flavor, then tucks into a trumpet solo, and then morphs into a slow, epic ending with the drums pounding on alternate beats. This song covers every emotion and music style on the entire album…in eight minutes. Eight glorious minutes of beautifully crafted aural ecstasy. Modest Mouse’s magnum opus, no doubt. I would have loved it if this were the last song on the album, honestly. It wraps everything up so well. Overall song grade: 5/5

“People As Places As People” is actually a very good song, but I think I would have liked to see it come before “Spitting Venom”. That would have been a very nice tandem in that order. It fits the second half the album to a tee, and while it sits in the shadow of “Spitting Venom”, it still shines. Overall song grade: 3.5/5

The last song on the album. Good song. Terrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrible song placement. It’s like it was tossed in at the end of production as an afterthought. The entire second half of the album, save the odd songs, is slower songs with a subdued styling. This is almost as forceful as “March Into the Sea”. It just doesn’t feel like an album ender. It feels like a middle of the album song. At the end, I sit there and go, “okay, start up the next song.” But the album just ends... and in iTunes, “Im’a Firin’ Mah Lazorz” by Morbicae starts up...Overall song grade: 2.5/5

Individually, this album has 3 or 4 great songs surrounded by forgettable filler songs. So looking at this album in terms of the individual songs, it appears to be decent. But looking at it as a whole revels a mainly cohesive album (minus the two weird songs and the bad ending) that works together and progresses nicely. The filler songs play their role in playing up the great ones. So I’ll grade it two ways:

Individually: 73% - It provides a couple great songs, but beyond that I wouldn’t want to listen to individual songs.

Whole album: 3.5/5 – The majority of the songs work together, the album progresses in musical styling, and it’s cohesive. Listening to the whole album is generally a pretty nice experience.

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