Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
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CD Details
Artist: Modest MouseBrand: Baker & Taylor
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-03-20
Model: 00828768613924
Music Label: Sony
Product features:
- MODEST MOUSE WE WERE DEAD THE SHIP EVEN SANK
- March Into The Sea
- Dashboard
- Fire It Up
- Florida
- Parting Of The Sensory
- Missed The Boat
- We've Got Everything
- Fly Trapped In A Jar
- Education
- Little Motel
- Steam Engenius
- Spitting Venom
- People As Places As People
- Invisible
Music reviews of We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Music Review: My thoughts
Rating: 4 Stars
Good album that borders on great. I'd say it's a bump up from 'Good News'; just as 'Dashboard' is not nearly as powerful a pop-ballad as the sickeningly popular 'Float On' became to me, 'We Were Dead', as an album in its entirety, regresses from the pop-laden mentality of its older brother, instead pulling out cues from the bands earlier work; i.e. creative, unpredictable, discordant song structure, etc. To be fair, the album is not a work of unparalleled complexity, but it IS complex -- I've never understood the argument that 'Good News'' foray into a more pop-filled musical universe discounted the actual stuff being written (the best pop's as good as anything, in my mind), and I don't understand it because it doesn't make sense -- 'Good News', like this album, still possessed so many of the engrossing musical/personality traits of the entity known as Modest Mouse. Who in the world thinks 'The Moon and Antarctica' was devoid of pop anyway?; need I point you to the first tracks on that album? Right. Oh, and for those who want to try and tell me that Modest Mouse's output pre-Moon was their peak, I say this -- you're wrong; if you want to tell me establishing some sort of lyricism via music and melody over time is a negative, and that retaining a peculiarly "raw" sound that refuses to enter territories known to us already is the only way to go about things...; I say look at how delicately Brock and co., over the years, managed to become more and more evocative; 'The Moon and Antarctica', in its heavier time/spaces, is one of the most poignant, reflective, intimate albums I've heard. And these guys, as far as I know, are a bunch of stoners (gasp!).
Sorry to get off track. I've liked every Modest Mouse album I've ever heard -- to varying degrees -- and this is no different; soundscapes breath a familiar air, yet still manage to impress with their fresh imprinting of that already-unique Modest Mouse musical palette. Where the album doesn't work as well as its prior, to me, is in its synthesis as a whole; all of MM's previous works have, in the end, felt complete; 'We Were Dead', despite maintaining some consistently awesome material after its mid-way point, seems to lose direction, or at least stability, and goes off tempo, with song structures not transitioning correctly into one or another, and other such matters... Too eclectic, even for Brock; there needs to be order. Nonetheless, that's the biggest flaw of the album, I think, and I speak of such in regards to only the music, too; when it seems like its psychotically running for the cliff, seeming never to return, Brock still provides SOME base with the ideas and themes he established earlier in the album... and thus, at that particular level, there is a start and finish to the whole thing -- even if the band's music doesn't display it the whole time, Brock's mind is in a state of congruency, and it saves the day.
OK last interjection -- though I really do love much of 'We Were Dead' musically, it really is one of those rare cases (for me, at least), where the lyrics actually rise above the music; again, to reinstate, this ---IS--- good, often stellar music, and yet Brock's poignant expressions still rise above that.... Brock has always been one of my favorite lyricists, probably because he seems to share some similar personality to my own; at once a goofball able to throw words together not before thought sane -- a musical comedian, to a degree -- but also able to convey his separate selves with such resonance, from anger, sadness, to fear, and all the while doing it wish a piercing imagination and execution..... Again, it's his worldview that I find so enrapturing, because he thinks for himself, distinctly from so many others, but all-the-while he is musing on things that I, and probably you, have too; when I listen to this album, I get relief in that I can relate to a madman like Brock (I'm not alone), and what appears new to me is not really new; I'm just accessing that little Issac Brock within the barrels of my unconscoius... and he's smiling. Wait, nevermind......
.........he's not smiling. He's neurotic as sin. The lyrics on 'We Were Dead', despite the music nearly always being up-tempo and of a pretty benign tone, are desperate, tragic, ugly. I'm not sure I've ever heard one album filled to the brim with personal anxieties, but again, it seems as if Brock is both opening up himself but also the universality of these particular emotional states we all are facing at this point in time and culture. It's a mini-novel, if you want to call it that; the metaphor of the ship -- ourselves -- finally sinking with nobody onboard.. Sure, the idea of spiritual death is nothing new, but the way Brock comments on the particular subject and its prevalence in both his existence and our own is intelligent and, like Brock has demonstrated before, reflective and sincere.
So overall, just get the stupid album.
Description of We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Limited edition two disc (CD + NTSC/Region 0 DVD) Japanese pressing of the 2007 album from the U.S. Alternative superheroes features one bonus track ('King Rat') plus a bonus DVD that contains three videos: 'Dashboard', 'Float On' and 'A Fisherman's Tale). . We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank is a new chapter in Modest Mouse's career with the new infusion of Johnny Marr and the extra percussion muscle brought by Plummer and Peloso. The new album features instant radio hit 'Dashboard.' Sony. 2007.Their last album may have given them a certifiable radio hit, airtime on VH1, and a Kidz Bop tribute, but listening to the follow-up to 2004's Good News for People Who Love Bad News, you might get the sense that the members of Modest Mouse are flinching at the spotlight. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, the group's fifth full-length release, is denser than its predecessor with tunes that seem willfully harder to penetrate. Even the addition of former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to the line-up seems incidental, as Modest Mouse's off-kilter sound stays largely intact. But keep listening and it becomes obvious that the band hasn't lost any of his pop bite, especially midway through with a sweep of terrific songs like "Missed the Boat," "Education" and "Little Motel." It's hard to tell if there's another "Float On" in the bunch. In fact, the first single, "Dashboard," is one of the weakest Isaac Brock has ever penned. With Shins James Mercer adding lovely vocals to "Florida," however, it hardly matters. --Aidin Vaziri
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