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Album Description: Limited edition two disc (CD + NTSC/Region 0 DVD) Japanese pressing of the 2007 album from the U.S. Alternative superheroes features one bonus track ('King Rat') plus a bonus DVD that contains three videos: 'Dashboard', 'Float On' and 'A Fisherman's Tale). . We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank is a new chapter in Modest Mouse's career with the new infusion of Johnny Marr and the extra percussion muscle brought by Plummer and Peloso. The new album features instant radio hit 'Dashboard.' Sony. 2007. Amazon.com: Their last album may have given them a certifiable radio hit, airtime on VH1, and a Kidz Bop tribute, but listening to the follow-up to 2004's Good News for People Who Love Bad News, you might get the sense that the members of Modest Mouse are flinching at the spotlight. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, the group's fifth full-length release, is denser than its predecessor with tunes that seem willfully harder to penetrate. Even the addition of former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to the line-up seems incidental, as Modest Mouse's off-kilter sound stays largely intact. But keep listening and it becomes obvious that the band hasn't lost any of his pop bite, especially midway through with a sweep of terrific songs like "Missed the Boat," "Education" and "Little Motel." It's hard to tell if there's another "Float On" in the bunch. In fact, the first single, "Dashboard," is one of the weakest Isaac Brock has ever penned. With Shins James Mercer adding lovely vocals to "Florida," however, it hardly matters. --Aidin Vaziri Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-07-02
Fantastick
It's one great song after another. If you don't feel like dancing to Fly Trapped in a Jar, Education and Steam Engenius check your pulse. Little Motel and Parting of the Sensory display Brock's quieter singing abilities and he does have them. The louder harder songs are more demanding of those abilities and you gotta have it to do it. I think they managed to equal and surpass the previous issue Good News for People Who Love Bad News and this is a band that is peaking. I just hope the peak last at least 20 years as I rarely find music that satisfies me like this does. Another masterwork some have called a magnificent mess. Well, it is magnificent. Rating:
Date: 2008-07-01
Modest Mouse makes an album with an anchored parachute on its cover
It's actually more like a 4.5, but it pains me to see only 4 stars on this album's 'average rating'. It ought to to be about 4.5 stars. I find it hard to compare Modest Mouse albums with each other when it comes to quality, so i will only tentativly say that this is probably their best Epic release(my favorite is actually the odds and ends compilation Buliding Nothing Out of Something). So the other reviewers have pretty much hit on everything I was planning on. Yes, this is anything but the sound of Modest Mouse 'selling out'. Yes it's dense, yes that guy from the Shins sings on a few tracks (best result is "We've Got Everything"). Yes, one of the highlights is the towering epic "Spitting Venom". Most of the songs are high-energy, fast and disoreintating, with incredible musicianship (Dig Johnny Marr's excellent guitarism throughout). The slower songs are welcome breaks, however. This is Modest Mouse's most 'over the top' album I think. Like I said, the band is a relentless force, playing fast and at odd time signatures for most of the songs. Isaac Brock's vocals are also at their most frantic, loud, and ridiculous-pummeling-torrent-of-words-esque. Throughout the album, he barely takes a break. I think that's due in part to the way it was mixeed. The end result is very in-you-face(there's a more conventional hyphenated phrase for ya). See before(on the earlier albums from the 90s) you had this madman of sorts yelling over all this guitar he was kinda buried under (along with his own double-tracked vocals). Well, now he's right in your ear. That's a recomendation, not a warning. Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-28
Etceteranough
Making clanky dance pop seems to be a major fetish these days. With Franz Ferdinand and Panic at The Disco revisiting this new wave station, Modest Mouse up the ante on "We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank." There's plenty of choppy pop to go around for those that love it.
Kind of like Canadians Hot Hot Heat, MM also has an affinity for The Cure's Robert Smith-style vocal yelps. Both "March Into The Sea" and initial single "Dashboard" whoop it up in grand style. Better still is "Missed The Boat," which is my favorite track here.
Isaac Brock also has a way with the chopped up lyric. "We've Got Everything" is a sad tale of details of folks who have done everything, "tried everything as half-a--ed and liars." All through "We Were Dead..." words bounce off each other and ricochet in imagistic fashion and nonsense. It makes a lot of the listening to this CD as much fun as a word puzzle (which probably says more about me than MM). If that sounds like your kind of pop band, than by all means, grab a life vest and get aboard. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-18
you gotta love these guys
not my usual genre of music, but i was quickly hooked by the power and thoughtful lyrics of modest mouse. i played it over and over and quickly sought out another disc to buy. highly recommended and can't wait to see them live. Rating:
Date: 2008-04-03
Dense, Erratic, Awesome
I am a relative newcomer to the Modest Mouse universe - the first album of their I owned was 'Good News for People Who Love Bad News' - but I don't think that disqualifies me from giving an opinion on this record.
Overall, it's very good. Not quite as good as previous ones, of course, but it's perhaps a darker step away from 'Good News' to let people know that pop is not what's to be expected from Modest Mouse.
Outright anger and cynicism, rather than just ethereal philosophizing, takes up much more space, sonically and lyrically, than on previous outings. The idea of sinking and drowning, especially, pops up in several songs. The guitars can be loud, to symbolize a sinking ship, or they can buzz, like a fly with only one wing. It's amazing, really.
There are extremely great songs - 'March Into the Sea' and 'Florida' - and there are songs that are less so. Some of the tracks - namely 'Parting of the Sensory' - could have bee broken up into two songs and been more successful. The last two minutes (!) of 'Parting' is great.
Of all the tracks, 'Spitting Venom' is perhaps the most impressive and confusing. It's the longest song on the album and just feels like it should close the record, and yet for some reason it doesn't, which I think was a mistake. But that doesn't take away from the quality of the song, which is astounding.
If you thought that 'Good News' is a much-hyped, 'over-produced' album, then 'We Were Dead' may hit the mark with you. |
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