Modest Mouse

My first contribution to this blog will be a small insight on one of my favorite contemporary bands, the rock band Modest Mouse. Formed back in 1993, Modest Mouse is an American indie rock band with a very distinctive musical concept; they deal with opposite ideas and fuse them into a single ironical and contrasting perspective of life, using metaphors, famous quotes and sometimes philosophical content to give a sarcastic and contrasting view to many life experiences, feelings o situations. This contrast is kept throughout their whole discography, as most of their songs deal with dark emotions such as loneliness, desperation, boredom and lack of motivation and their instrumentalism strengthens this concept with the use of arrangements with cello and mandolin, perfectly well combined with guitar, drums and bass lines that end up giving a rather colorful and sometimes “happy” and catchy tune to the dark, sad and pessimistic lyrics. Furthermore, their lead singer and founder of the band, called Isaac Brock, is best identified for his lisp-tinged voice, vocal pitching, and shouting that ends up giving much more emphasis in the sarcastic content to the songs, and basically expressing the whole “Oh well, we are screwed aren’t we?” idea that the band often uses.

Their studio album’s and song names and themes take part in the band’s ironic way of exposing life moments, for example, their first album is called “This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About” and most of the songs deal about the idea of loneliness, traveling and isolation, same concepts kept in future albums as exposed in the songs “Talking shit about a pretty sunset” and “The good times are killing me” that express discontent and frustration in happy moments or situations, always evoking the idea of “what could’ve been” or “It could be worse”.
However, in their latter work the intention of the band is not to present life as something sad, dark or annoying as much as it is a surreal journey to understand reality, once more, contrasting ideas of the way things happen in the usual life experience of the average American citizen.