A couple months ago, aboard the Modest Mouse concert cruise known as Ice Cream Floats, Isaac Brock showed me some art he was excited about. It was the packshot and interior artwork for a new Modest Mouse album called An Eraser And A Maze. The imagery was largely the same, except what you see in black and white on the outside is in color on the inside, which is such an Isaac Brock decision. Why not put the color on the outside?! I guess you have to pay up to get the color.
Anyway, they announced the album today. It's dropping June 5 on Brock's own imprint Glacial Pace — the first new Modest Mouse album to come out on an indie label since 1997's The Lonesome Crowded West. (Coincidentally, fellow Pacific Northwest greats Death Cab For Cutie's first indie-label album since 2003 is dropping the same day.) Brock produced it with assists from Jacknife Lee, Suzy Shinn, and Justin Raisen. The An Eraser And A Maze announcement comes just days after Modest Mouse's debut album This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About turns 30.
Modest Mouse shared the new LP's penultimate track "Look How Far" a month ago. Today, along with the album announcement, they're releasing its opening track. "Picking Dragons' Pockets" has a lot going on, including a pleasing synth undercurrent, an intense drums-guitar intro that could almost be part of a ska track if they subbed in some horns, and lyrics that find Brock in his bag. "I ain't your passenger now, nor your equipment," he begins, before later declaring, "I'm not crazy 'bout what they're so crazy 'bout now."
Listen below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Picking Dragons' Pockets"
02 "Remember Yourself"
03 "Life’s A Dream"
04 "Third Side Of The Moon"
05 "Dogbed in Heaven/Give It A Skeleton"
06 "Interlude"
07 "I Can’t Talk Right Now"
08 "Speak ‘N Spell (Or Not)"
09 "Rotten Fruit" (Feat. Justin Raisen)
10 "Knocked Down By Waves"
11 "Absolutely Necessary Never"
12 "Song About Nothing"
13 "Stoner Party"
14 "Look How Far"
15 "Impossible Somedays"
An Eraser And A Maze is out 6/5 on Glacial Pace. Pre-order it here.
