I’ve found the insane fervor resulting from the “we sound like Midwest burgers and flannel flapping in the summer breeze” music created by Modest Mouse to always be a bit overblown. Up to and including Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks, Isaac Brock and the Thrift Store Fatties did their down-tuned stumbling dustbowl indie rock thing-and, boring as it may have been, that ambling, pathetically lethargic (pathargic?) sound and Brock’s bid for Captain Screamy McHistrionic with his nasal, belching whine defined a time and a place in music-back when the shirts and jeans weren’t distressed as much as old and cheaply made. I saw them play live in the Criminal Records parking lot in 2001, and it was then that I witnessed what I’ve come to call “the lisp heard ‘round the world”. Upon seeing singer Isaac Brock hiss and spit both his lyrics and his saliva halfway ‘cross the pavement (not to be confused with the time Brock spit on Stephen Malkmus), I’ve been unable to ever again listen to a single Modest Mouse song without hearing that damn lisp. Once you’re made aware of it, it, to out-of-context quote Jonathan Lethem, becomes akin to monster eyes-blown up out of proportion.

It was Good News For People Who Love Bland Food, or whatever the hell that album with THAT song (the one that Placeholder used to sing as “ALL RIGHT ALL READY”) was, that they began slipping from their “stand up straight” method of rocking and started making the most basic, banal sort of dancerock possible. It seemed funny how the fat kids at the lunch table suddenly wanted to play MisShapes, but the world bought it…mostly.

C’mon, admit it-“Float On” is obnoxious like a baby with a loose bladder.

Now, hot on the battered-and-breaded heels of their first pale, hairy toe into the waters of making “music the kids actually like”, Modest Mouse release We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, their first album having accepted former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr into their fold. Some assjocks even went so far as to re-name the band “Modest Marr”-the titular use of which simply proves one’s inability to function in society. One listen to the album, which leaves behind Good News’ few-and-far-between moments of simple, plaintive storytelling in favor of Brock trying to twist and shout like a cheeseburger surprise was at stake (or at steak), and sounding all the worse for it. Other than that voice, there’s nothing even remotely recognizable about the Modest Mouse combination now, and it’s a shame-imagine Marr’s now-legendary way of finding unknown gaps and filling them with razor-sharp light and sound would have sounded on, oh, Lonesome Crowded West. Instead, he’s stuck saddling up to this album that wouldn’t have worked three years ago, and doesn’t work now. Simply by basing the album around the sound of the first single, “Dashboard”, it appears as if Modest Mouse has never heard of Marr’s other band(s), or any other little bands like, oh, say, Blondie. The addition of Shins singer James Mercer only helps to spread the cheese on the milquetoast, and the album’s closer, “Invisible”, would be better off as just that. As it stands, it’s an insulting bit of Tylenol PM to wash the whole mess down.

It’s no wonder, then, that Isaac Brock went bear-shit crazy and did his best Live Action Role Play of Iggy Pop (+4 Bloodlust, -10billion HP) the other night in South Dakota, slashing the hell out of himself either in attempt to prove that he can be as cool as Matt Bellamy from Muse or, as is more probable, in a valiant if ill-fated effort to end his own boredom.

From Pitchfork:

According to reader Joshua Cole, after deliberately bonking his head, Brock “then walked back to his amp, grabbed a pocket knife, and cut a 12 inch cut across his chest. His assistant had to grab the knife and stop him. He was bleeding the rest of the concert, and later fell off the stage into the barrier before singing in the crowd.”

Let’s go back to a time when Modest Mouse made something amazing

Modest Mouse: Trailer Trash

In retrospect, even Brock’s vocal nuances shine like a diamond on this, from 1997’s Lonesome Crowded West. “Trailer Trash” epitomizes what Modest Mouse did so well in that once-upon-a-time: turning tumbleweed landscapes and trips to the Save-A-Lot into brilliant tales of heartache and ennui, and crafting from white trash a White Trashe Aesthetic that very nearly made trailer parks the coolest place to originate from. “Eatin’ thnowflakth with plathtic forkth” never sounded so beautifully, brilliantly, grotesquely endearing.

I remain hopeful that Marr will steer the Mouse where it needs to go-because, at this point, the title “We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank” is an unfortunate foreshadow of the band’s utter lack of creativity. It’s difficult not to listen to older Modest Mouse and then newer, back-to-back, and get a look of disappoint, disdain and distaste on one’s face while muttering “THIS is your direction? Really? Providing the soundtrack to a Ford commercial for American Idols?”

To paraphrase Morrissey himself, “that scene is dead, boys.”