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"Perpetual Motion Machine" is about fish who wish they could walk so they could find out how it feels to fall down, and "Whale Song" bemoans Brock's metaphorical uselessness as it demonstrates his capacity for beauty.
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So while it doesn’t exactly have the cohesive through-line of Modest Mouse’s epic full-lengths, No One’s First still captures solid energy from a band riding a long-ass peak.
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Growing more comfortable with their talents, maybe they’re learning that you don’t always have to work so hard and worry so much. Sometimes, you can just float on.
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These supposed table scraps left off their previous two albums, Good News… and We Were… respectively, run a gauntlet that finds the band revitalized, lively and tremendously wonderful.
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Beyond the banjo-brushed lullaby 'Autumn Beds' and the laser show-ready 'The Whale Song,' it's a bumpy ride. Bless them for never being boring, though.
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Given its years-spanning tracklist, No One's First obviously has a retrospective flavor, but it also seems to point the way ahead for Modest Mouse, if only to suggest that the band will continue moving in opposite directions--backwards and forwards--all at once.
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This collection of B-sides, recorded over the past few years, is way more put-together than Modest Mouse’s previous rarities comps, Building Nothing Out Of Something and Sad Sappy Sucker. But it lacks the carefree charm of Isaac Brock’s pre-success indie rock experiments.
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‘The Whale Song’ may offer a solitary crumb for old skool Micers to nibble, but unfortunately this EP will not offer much else.
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As a collection of odds and ends, No One’s First… is a necessarily disjointed album. It’s alternately disappointingly simple and refreshingly unique from song to song, torn between country, radio rock and classic Modest Mouse.
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Boring when they're not acting out, but too jarring when hitting their groove, Brock and company are forced to toe a finicky line between normalcy and absurdity.
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Each of these eight leftovers can be divided into rote, by-the-numbers Modest Mouse rock jams and meandering pseudo-experiments that feel, uncharacteristically and disappointingly, like nothing more than filler.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 38 out of 40
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Mixed: 1 out of 40
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Negative: 1 out of 40
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DerekGOct 30, 2009listen to this 10 times or more and tell me it's not fantastic.
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Feb 22, 2015
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Oct 8, 2010