Modest Mouse / The Lonesome Crowded West by Amy Briggs Up Records Forget your guns, saloons, and painted ladies. It's time to slam the shutters and bolt the door. Modest Mouse packs a loaded pistol on The Lonesome Crowded West, their third full-length release, produced by Beat Happening/K Records' Calvin Johnson, the man who ruined rock and roll. If you're expecting an album of cute lovable tunes, enjoy being chased for seventy-four minutes with a butcher's knife. Modest Mouse has no qualms about crossing the line, again and again. They annoy in the worst sense, bang their instruments with a skillful vengeance, disturb your conscience, parents, and neighbors, bounce around like drunken puppets, and invoke hatred in the uninitiated. It's wonderful. Sure, the characteristic sound is there: vocalist/guitarist Isaac Brock still spits his chopped syllables into the bass-drum dissonance spun by Eric Judy and Jeremiah Green. This time, however, the blender's grown teeth. Don't be misled; there's quite a bit more to Modest Mouse than just male aggression. I don't know the exact mile-to-page ratio, but it's clear that they've been reading more on the road since their last recording. These boys are masters of subtlety; comb out the screams and shouts, sift through the sarcasm and bizarre imagery, and you'll see the humor and tediousness in relationships, TV, endless interstates, cheap hotel rooms, long distance phone calls, endless interstates, pretentious scenesters, and countless bottles of vodka. The album starts off with "Teeth like God's Shoeshine," a blinding six-minute flash of metaphor, yanking you by the hair from the "top of the ocean ... to the bottom of the sky." Admittedly, it's hard to take this album straight, no chaser. Fifteen songs of condensed angst is enough to throw anybody into a cold sweat. "And the telephone goes off/pick the receiver up/try to meet ends ... and find out the beginning,/the end and the best of it." "Heart Cooks Brain," the catchiest track, mixes up some DJ wiggedy wiggedy wack with a neat little guitar riff that snakes its way in and out of the chorus; unfortunately, this will probably be their only modern-rock friendly cut, since beat is what makes the kids dance in Plan 9 these days. "Lounge (Closing Time)" blasts the rollerskating rink with the story of a girl unknowingly dating a porno ... er, cinematographer. "Trucker's Atlas," my favorite, meanders cross-country in odd tunings reminiscent of Polvo. The plane is definitely crashing: the boat is obviously sinking; the building is totally burning down, but Modest Mouse doesn't plan to throw in the towel anytime soon. The Lonesome Crowded West derives its strength from conflict. Boy versus Alcohol. Car versus Road. Apathy versus Conformity. Girl versus Phone. Soul versus Mind. Passenger versus Train. Friendship versus Desire. (Basically, everything except Wahoo versus Reality.) The tension is present in each and every song; piled one after another, they can be too much to handle in one sitting, especially if you were unbalanced to begin with. You'll end up wanting to punch padded walls or midgets with clenched fists. Some of the finest lyrics summing up the frustration can be found in the last song, "Styrofoam Boots/It's All Nice on Ice, Alright." As Isaac explains, "Well all's not well/but I'm told that it'll be quite nice/you'll be drowned in boots like Mafia/but your feet will still float like Christ's/and I'll be damned, they were right./I'm drowning upside down ..." The Lonesome Crowded West is nice on ice, alright. Especially if you don't believe in brakes. Modest Mouse will send your tires skidding. Crash.

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