I heard King Rat yesterday from "
No ones first, and you're next" and it was probably the best thing I've heard in months.
Modest Mouse is displaying a brilliant understanding of what sounds to be like Talking Heads and Tom Waits together. And King Rat has displayed that message again - quirky grooves and ambient raw instrumentation.
I've checked out the rest of the album but nothing is striking me quite as much. Ultimately it cuts to the depths of what I really like about music. All the instrumentation sounds like paint sloppily tossed at the canvas, but represents elements of the life, or the characteristics of the tumultuous characters created in the songs.
The world has created some natural beauty out there, and there are times when I would recant such a statement, but what will win me over more often than the highest mountains or the most beautiful forests is the tiny aberrations in civilized society, and the music that attempts to interpret those aberrations and the confusion around them through dissonant, jarring music.
Modest Mouse is becoming one of the finest artists in the 21st century. King Rat does nothing to disprove this.