I was fortunate enough to get an early listen to Modest Mouse’s new album No One’s First And Your Next EP and I have to say I am satisfied listening to it. The album is all B-Sides from the Good News… and We Were Dead… albums so your getting songs that didn’t really make the cut but are still gems to be heard. Sometimes just because these songs didn’t get on the album doesn’t mean they should have, I mean sometimes songs actually are created so late in the process they just aren’t complete by the time the album is put together so it’s left over and sort of floating with no home. That’s why I like how Modest Mouse over the years will release albums featuring songs that didn’t make any of their albums and put all these songs together spanning an era of their music.
The album starts off with the single “Satellite Skin” which has been on the radio for sometime and I can’t stop yelling the line “Well, happy fucking congratulations” everytime it gets to that verse. The second track “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” is a decent song in it’s own right but it doesn’t hold any comparison to “Autumn Beds” which is by far the best track on the album in my opinion. A beautiful slow banjo led song that will have you singing “We won’t be sleeping in our autumn beds” throughout your entire day because it gets stuck in your head everytime you hear it.
Another favorite of mine on the album is “The Whale Song” which is exactly what it sounds like, guitars wailing for three minutes, jamming out and sounding like whales talking. After the jam session it kicks into a one verse chorus until it finally rocks out the end of the song to lead into the second half of the EP. The next two songs are the weakest I feel off the entire EP and I think it’s because they are more experimental songs to what Modest Mouse does and also a little annoying with the amount of instruments being used. The songs are “Perpetual Motion Machine” and “Hickory Sticks To The Feet” and it’s not that they are terrible it’s just they don’t seem to be the strong point of the album at all, but hey! it is a B-Sides album.
The album finishes off strong with songs that were released as actual B-Sides to singles off the past two albums so many people have heard the great “King Rat” ripped many a times in concert. As well as the very underrated “I’ve Got It All (Most) which I feel is a song that should have easily made it onto the Good News album.
In a nut shell it is an absolutely necessary Modest Mouse album to buy and I would say 6 out of the 8 songs kick ass and will definately be classics in the long run. And when your buying a Modest Mouse album your getting what you are paying for so it’s really no mystery why I keep pushing this band over and over again on this blog.