This Mouse is anything but Modest

Good News For People Who Love Bad News

Release date: April 6

Sony/Epic

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Good News For People Who Love Bad News

Release date: April 6

Sony/Epic

Recommended if you like: Built to Spill, Ugly Casanova, The Pixies

The blaring horns that open Good News For People Who Love Bad News should be a shock to listeners familiar with the Issaquah, Wash.-based Modest Mouse. Despite their quaint, lumberjack-town roots, the band has produced a series of eclectic albums since beginning to record in 1993, and they have enjoyed some national success.

Their three previous albums — and the excellent b-sides collection Building Nothing Out of Something — share characteristics that make the band’s unique sound easily identifiable. Lead singer Isaac Brock’s vocals fluctuate between soft, melodious singing and belted-out stream-of-consciousness lyrics. The slightly distorted, folk-tinged guitar parts similarly oscillate, often within a single song, between soft strumming and edgy, fast-paced scratching.

However, a change in the band’s sound shouldn’t be unexpected following the recent changes in the band’s lineup. Longtime drummer Jeremiah Green, who left the band under mysterious conditions before the recording of Good News last fall, has been replaced with Benjamin Weikel. Founding guitarist Dan Galluci — who has not played with the band since 1993 — rejoined the group to record Good News.

Although Good News features the usual Isaac Brock lyrics — which consist of waxing philosophical about random subjects (including space-time!) — that fans adore, the sound of the album is noticeably more poppy and sentimental. Where once there was mostly discord and insanity, there are now catchy melodies and guitar hooks, as on the album’s single “Float On.” Other tracks, such as “Blame It On The Tetons,” give the listener a sense of heartfelt despair.

Brock’s lyrics deal with morbid subjects, tackling death and grief with a pronounced bitterness and cynicism. But these vocals have also changed. Brock sounds relaxed and playful in his delivery, rather than forceful and as if he were on the verge of drug/alcohol-induced mental breakdown. Perhaps the band’s new lineup will be less prone to the drug-riddled and insane lifestyle the band is known for.

Some fans may lament the lack of an organic unity to the album. The sound changes drastically from song to song, as between “The Devil’s Work Day,” which sounds like evil carnival music with vocals that seem more appropriate for a Tom Waits song, and “The View,” a song reminiscent of Talking Heads and driven by a disco beat. But this should be fans’ only substantive complaint about Good News.

Modest Mouse’s sound has certainly evolved, but it remains beautiful and unique.