Modest Mouse - Building Nothing Out Of Something

Loneliness, boredom, and random observations have been at the heart of Modest Mouse's skewered musical universe through all their releases. The Issaquah, Washington-born trio has also been able to spin very-long-playing albums that catered to the group's core obsessions, with both its full-length Up Records releases--This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About and The Lonesome Crowded West clocking in at more than 70 minutes in length. So it's refreshing to hear this supremely odd rock band at its most economical. Building Nothing Out of Something catches singles, compilation tunes, and more--none of which were ever intended to be sequenced as an album. As a narrative whole, the singles take on a visionary quality, discerning worldly, bent revelations in the everyday world. The swervy vocals that Isaac Brock has made his trademark sound as languidly distressed as ever, stricken by marvel and ghastly awakenings in equal measures. The music serves Brock well, sounding wobbly and sturdy at once, as if it barely teeters on chaos's brink at a variety of mostly midtempo paces. "Never Ending Math Equation," "A Life of Arctic Sounds," and "Other People's Lives" play the most stoutly, with the tonally clean guitars breaking across all the angular phrasings and rhythms Modest Mouse thrive on while Brock's voice goes from warpy drollery to exasperated wail in the face of his task as a singer and writer. --Andrew Bartlett Amazon.com

Why am I even writing this?

It's 2008- and I am reviewing such an old album, but that's just because this album is classic. Many people seem to think the Moon and Antarctica is their best album, but this album and the lonesome crowded west are their most powerful pieces of work, I.M.H.O. This group is ill. Period. I wish they would go back to this album and make another that sounds just like it- but you can't go back, only forward. April 27, 2008

Best Modest Mouse album to date!

Although it took me at least two listens to love it as much as I do now, I can say to you with all my heart: Greatest Modest Mouse Album! The CD has almost all my favorite songs, including Broke and Other People's Lives. Their sound is so unique, and this album exhibits this more than Lonesome Crowded West and Good News For People Who Love Bad News combined!


"I'm never lonesome when I'm by myself." - Modest Mouse, Baby Blue Sedan February 19, 2008

"I think about the pavement to avoid premature...."

This is another great album from Modest Mouse that is just bottom line entertaining and surreal. So ecclectic and weird. Drug fueled? Perhaps. But I think its well worth the price of admission! December 21, 2007

Building Garbage (Something) Out of Hype (Nothing)

I bought this CD for $1.08 from a church thrift shop and have listened to it several times. Conclusion: I grossly overpaid.

This CD is filled with repetitive and consistently bad sounds. Calling this stuff music would be quite a stretch.... tracks 6 and 8 compete ferociously with one another as to which can be more odious and stupid. Track 11 has a few glimmers of quality but, like every other track on this disk, greatly overstays its welcome.

Disregard those obscenely misguided 5-star reviews -- they are unforgivably tasteless acts which can only lead more people to buy this horrid record. October 16, 2007

Spent 18 hours waiting Stoned for Space

I spent the same 18 in the same d*mn place. I'm on a road shaped like a figure 8/I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.

That is my favorite song on this album. The lyrics, vocals, guitar playing all mesh into something great. And a lot of Modest Mouse fans dislike 'Good News' but that and my 9th grade math teacher(long story) got me into Mouse and they are now my favorite band. Every song is different and great and just buy the cd. Great band.

August 20, 2007

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