No One's First, and You're Next

With the usual sinister rock undertones and winding, abstruse album name, Isaac Brock and his Pacific Northwest indie rock minstrels return in 2009 with the siren-ish EP NO ONE'S FIRST, AND YOU'RE NEXT. While the band is no stranger to switching up its style (this record returns to the dark melancholia and vaudevillian anachronism of their early Epic records as opposed to the borderline-disco flair of much of their mid-to-late '00s work), one constant of Modest Mouse records is its many subtle folds, both musical and lyrical, tailor-made for the listener to lose themselves within. And NO ONE'S FIRST is no different. Modest Mouse's songs build slowly and change suddenly as Brock unleashes his poetry at will with a trademarked e.e. cummings-esque love of language and a disdain for conformed-to structure, pausing on phrases at seemingly spontaneous intervals then letting them drop. NO ONE'S FIRST packs a lot of Modest Mouse living into its half-hour plus, and while it's a journey to places they've seen before, there's still bounteous hidden thrills inside.