Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News

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I love The Moon & Antartica. It has two of my all time favorite Modest Mouse songs, Paper Walls and Tiny Cities Made of Ashes. I can understand why people claim it to be Modest Mouse's masterpiece, but there is just something I don't get. Most of the people that are so quick to praise TMAA are quicker to dismiss the next album, Good News For People Who Love Bad News as anything less than an equal. Their favorite argument is claiming that Modest Mouse catered to a more mainstream crowd with it, they tamed down the weirdness a little bit to appeal to radio. That's ridiculous. Listen to Dance Hall or The Devil's Workday and tell me those songs aren't a little weird. I like to think that Modest Mouse were always slightly ahead of their time, but they stayed together long enough for the time to catch up to them. Good News... is an example of a right record coming out at the right time, and anyone who doesn't think they worked hard enough to get to where they are is an idiot.

Despite being similar to TMAA in a lot of ways, there is one major difference. The drums on Good News... are clearer, louder, and Jeremiah Green had finally perfected his style of loose, in the pocket drumming with a touch of spastic, punk rock fury.

It takes two tracks for him to come in, but he does it with a smooth rolling snare/high hat fill that makes your head start to bob instantly. The beat for Float On is straight rock in theory but Green has a way to meld time with his sticks, and it feels like it has a slight swing.

Once the cymbals come in on The Ocean Breathes Salty Green layers them at the perfect level, it all feel very airy, and he does these snare trills between hits that really help the song dynamically.

Every song has something cool to it, even when Green is holding back. My favorites would have to be Bury Me With It, where Green alternates between a kick/high hat rhythm into a loud, crashing rock beat every eight bars or so, and The View where he plays a tight dance beat with some disco high hats, a pumping kick drums and some awesome snare work.

Green has really forged his way into an interesting area of rock drumming, he walks a fine line between loose time and tight rhythm, and he does it with an original sense of dynamic.

My lovely girlfriend was awesome enough to gt us tickets to see Modest Mouse next week, so basically, I can't wait to watch this guy play drums this upcoming Monday, and while I had other albums lined up in my head to post on here, I've been brushing up on MM for the show and I thought I would share it with you.

Neener Neener Neener.

Audio/Video Evidence: Satin In A Coffin, Ocean Breathes Salty, Float On