Review Summary: You'll remember, the guy who said all those big words he must of learned in college.
Being an introvert in your late teens and early 20’s can be a very frustrating mindset to have to deal with, especially while at college. Surrounded by new faces in a new place, it's easy to start to feel as if it is your duty to make new friends and have the time of your life. After all, it is college right? Living in the isolation that college presents can be a very disheartening experience, and while it certainly gets better, it is always nice to know that there are records like this indie rock classic to let you know you aren’t alone. The title of the album,
Lonesome Crowded West, clearly wasn’t named after a poor college experience, but instead the new and growing capitalist industrial complex sweeping over America and the west coast during the 1990’s. As different a topic is that is, this album’s ability to relate to so many people and withstand so much time is what makes it not only so wonderful, but worth your time. No matter what it is you are going through, it’s not hard to find comfort in a record as emotionally captivating as this one.
Regardless of the personal experience I’ve had with this album, it’s also important to note just how influential this album was on the music side of things. While early Modest Mouse seemed to reek of Pixies influence,
Lonesome Crowded West is the breakout album that showcases how a great Modest Mouse record should sound like. The sound put forth on this record is still heard today, which really sums up just how much of a landmark this album was to indie rock, and just how influential this group was to countless bands for years to come.
As many Modest Mouse fans know, this group never shies away from a powerful opener, and it doesn’t get much more powerful than
Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine. This track right off the bat takes off in a very abrasive Modest Mouse fashion, and also dabbles very tastefully in the loud/soft dynamic that is all over this record. This track also succeeds at what so many opening tracks try and fail at, as it perfectly paints the picture of what to expect from the rest of the record. Not to say this record is predictable, because this is definitely Modest Mouse’s most experimental record to date. From the record scratches heard all over
Heart Cooked Brains, the funky and very danceable riffs all over
Lounge (Closing Time), the extremely experimental drum oriented tracks at the tail end of the record, to the quiet ballads on here, this is an album with an extremely unique indie rock output. Isaac Brock doesn’t shy away from anything on this album, and it pays off in a big way.
While it’s easy to get lost in all the very impressive instrumentation used on this album, I also believe this to be Brock’s most powerful record lyrically. It’s an extremely personal record, and it’s easy to tell from songs like
Trailer Trash, which deals with his personal experience of the short amount of time he had growing up in a trailer park and all the insecurities that came with it, and also all of the very powerful metaphors used on the acoustic ballad
Bankrupt on Selling. Not only are these tracks powerful on their own, they also fit in perfectly on the soft side of the scale of the loud/soft dynamic this record plays around with so well. These tracks sound fantastic matched up against the relentless
*** Luck, the extremely intense build up on
Cowboy Dan, the punkish grooves on
Doin’ the Cockroach, as well as Brock’s intense vocals on tracks like
Convenient Parking.
It can be very easy to talk this album up to perfection, but there definitely are some faults with it. The biggest fault, which I’ve found to be very common with most Modest Mouse records, is that this album feels a bit bloated at times. This record is just over seventy minutes long, but songs like
Jesus Christ Was an Only Child and
Trucker’s Atlas can make it feel a little tedious to sit through the whole album. I can appreciate the experimenting done on these tracks, but they don’t pack the same punch that the rest of this record does. This album also starts off a lot stronger than it ends, but it isn’t too noticeable, and it doesn’t take too much away from the experience as a whole.
Overall, it’s very easy to see why this record has such a long shelf life in the world of indie rock. It’s powerful, risky, captivating, abrasive, and emotional, which is why this album is so important to so many people. It’s easy to find yourself alone in a crowded world, and Brock most likely knows this feeling as well as anyone. I’ve lived in a time where I found it difficult to connect with all the different people around me, but I’m forever grateful I had records like
Lonesome Crowded West to help me through it.
9.3/10
