”I’m listening to a new Modest Mouse album.”

For a very long time, that seemed like a sentence no one would ever be able to utter honestly. As the years wound past following 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank—a record that dropped when I was 16 years old—the same pattern repeated over and over again. First, the band would make some comment about writing songs or heading into the studio; then, fans would throw Modest Mouse on their most anticipated lists, saying things like “IT’S GOING TO BE THIS YEAR!!!” And then, inevitably, December would come to a close without any word about a new record. Soon enough, we’d all start the vicious cycle all over again.

Allusions to death and the afterlife, crass cynicism, and pessimistic wordplay were all wonderful lyrical role models for my first foray into indie rock. This venture oddly enough began in an American Eagle at Georgia’s North Point Mall. Feeling the need for a new array of corporate spun polo-tees led me into the brightly lit, heavily perfumed AE showroom. It was fate, as I see it, that Modest Mouse’s “Float On” came tumbling out of the store’s speakers that day. Coming out of that mall a few hours later I was a changed boy. No longer worried about whom I’d impress the next day at school, I set to work on finding out more about this band that had just opened up my ears. Little by little, This is a Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About, The Lonesome Crowded West, and The Moon and Antarctica slowly found their way into my, at that time, virtually empty CD shelf. Long story short, I would find myself exploring decrepit fan-sites, a lacking official website, and countless forums that touched and went on the band. The lack of information didn’t keep me from learning to play “Dramamine” on my bass, annotating themes and symbolism in “3rd Planet” and utterly worshipping “Styrofoam Boots”. All of the latter because of a humbly-formed, Issaquah based, angular indie-rock band by the name of Modest Mouse. Today I consider myself somewhat of an expert on the band and well-connected with the majority of the indie scene because of my beginnings with Isaac Brock and Co. Now, well after four full-lengths, four proper EPs, two B-side albums, and an official bootleg have been released by Washington’s finest, we are met with We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. If Brock’s perpetual use of allusions to death and the afterlife, crass cynicism, and pessimistic wordplay has taught me anything; it’s that his genius is outright timeless and one of the reasons I write for this site today.