[rating=7.00]
Seven years is a long time to wait for anything. The re-emergence of Modest Mouse in some form every year or so (either through reissues, concerts, or books) makes it all the easier to take the band for granted, to forget just how great they can be when they knuckle down, crafting music so ubiquitous and catchy that it crosses out of indie circles – into the Billboard charts, and on to kid’s compliations. But Modest Mouse, truly, don’t have any popular music equivalent. (Maybe Arcade Fire, but, uh…ARCADE FIRE, amirite?)
So in their musical seven-year-absence, any new music put out in the interim will be unfairly scrutinized. It’s been too long and, oh, how we are hungry. Our expectations have peaked, receeded, risen again, and been blown wide open with the appearance of a mysterious test pressing vinyl sent to some lucky Modest Mouse fans. You would think that Michael Jackson (rest in peace) had released a new Christmas song produced by Quincy Jones.
“Lampshades on Fire,” the hyped new track from the band’s upcoming LP, Strangers to Ourselves, pumps and bounces with the bass and drum syncopation that made “Float On” and “Dashboard” radio crossover mega hits. Isaac Brock lumbers in lyrically after a sorta silly intro of “ba ba ba”s, announcing this: “We’re all going / we’re all going.” What he doesn’t end the phrase with – and what any MM fan worth their depression-ridden salt expects is – this conclusion: “straight to hell.” But Brock doesn’t have to spell it out for us; the rest of his lyrics force that hand well enough.
He deals us cynicism in droves – and that’s not a bad thing, given that MM have essentially made their living in the realm of nihilism and self-defeat. “Pack it up again / move to the next place/ where we’ll make the same mistakes,” Brock intones about the never-ending party that humans have waged in spite of their souls. Then, to top it off, we have to get interplanetary by the song’s end to “find another party/make the same mistakes.” “This is what I really call a party now!” he barks, tongue firmly in cheek.
Structurally, if “Lampshades on Fire” has a chorus, it doubles as a verse, with an adrenaline-driven outro where Brock spits more decrepit observations about the human race. (“We want you to do the work” and “We’ll eat the food, we’ll throw the stone.”) The thump and push of the interlocked bass and drums get some additional elevation from what sounds like a makeshift choir in the song’s final minute.
Clocking in at just over three minutes, “Lampshades on Fire” isn’t the strongest Modest Mouse song in their catalog; in fact, it already starts to sound worn after six or seven listens. But, honestly, we’ll take what I can get from Brock and company at this point. They offer no more than before – but no less, either. And hearing them again, no worse for the wear in the interim seven years, is a grand enough way to close out 2014. Turn out the lights and set the lampshades on fire, please. It’s time to party. Sort of.
