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Mar 13, 2015The album’s real heart, though, is in the spots where Brock lets his eccentricities run wild. “Pistol (A. Cunanan, Miami, FL. 1996)” is named for the man who murdered Gianni Versace, and is as deeply creepy as its subject matter. It’s as strange as “Lampshades” is accessible, a tricky move pulled off expertly, and proof that the band’s found a vital second wind.
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Mar 17, 2015It's the sound of a veteran band coming back to the game without missing a beat, and churning out some of their best, liveliest, and catchiest material in the process.
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Mar 17, 2015Like 2007’s We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, it’s a comfortably familiar return to the less-than-comfortable mix of weighty lyrics and jittery, crazy-eyed indie rock that’s sustained Modest Mouse’s illustrious career.
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UncutMar 30, 2015A (rap-free) triumph. [May 2015, p.77]
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Mar 19, 2015Fans will be relieved that after such a protracted labour Strangers To Ourselves has emerged in surprisingly good shape, even if it lacks the robust conviction of Modest Mouse’s best work.
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Mar 16, 2015His inspired wordplay is consistently great and occasionally brilliant.
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Mar 16, 2015It’s bruised and brilliant, idiosyncratic and anthemic, sloppy and heartfelt. It’s an album only Modest Mouse could make.
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Mar 13, 2015A bold, far-reaching and determined work that continues Brock's journey creating music both accessible and eccentric.
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Mar 13, 2015It’s nuanced and complex, yet it feels easy, and its originality is an antidote to the kind of mainstream corporate swill that passes for “indie” rock these days.
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Mar 13, 2015Strangers isn’t bottled lightning like The Moon & Antarctica or The Lonesome Crowded West, nor does it contain a magnitude 9 single like Good News or Ship, but its unwieldy stature and combative stance compliments Modest Mouse’s storied discography.
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Apr 28, 2015If Lonesome and Moon are 10s, Good News is a 9 and Long Drive and We Were Dead are 8’s, then this gets 7/10. Definitely worth picking up for Modest Mouse fans, but those new to the band should start elsewhere.
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Mar 20, 2015Modest Mouse have written 15 good tracks that don’t amount to a great album.
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Mar 17, 2015The effect is a riot of craft that never coheres but rewards committed listening, thrilling in bolts and spurts like a good multiband compilation.
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Mar 17, 2015They never quite hit the peaks of their last two albums, but the result is ultimately a more even experience.
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Mar 17, 2015For an album that, like every other Modest Mouse album, rattles on at an extended length, Strangers to Ourselves can desperately afford to trim the fat.
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Mar 16, 2015This isn’t quite that fantastic album we wanted and we know--at least hope we know--Brock and company have in them; however, it’s enough to prompt the hope that the axles are greased well enough now to deliver it next time around.
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MagnetMar 12, 2015Brock and Co. manage to entertain and amuse as often as they don't. [No. 118, p.51]
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Mar 12, 2015It's an impressively unpredictable record that veers down wildly different paths, in ways no previous Modest Mouse album has dared.
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Oct 8, 2015Limited variety and specks of staleness can't ground the high points.
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Mar 31, 2015There's plenty to like about Strangers to Ourselves; it's just that it genuinely baffles that an LP as sprawling as this can have so many different ideas, and so few new ones.
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Mar 17, 2015Here they sound like they’ve settled into their status as a reliable indie rock institution. Strangers to Ourselves is a pleasant album, and one that completes their transition from "inspired" to "sturdy".
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Mar 23, 2015Strangers to Ourselves is an album where the trees matter more than the forest: song for song, it demonstrates the exacting nature of Brock but put it all together, it sprawls.
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MojoMar 19, 2015Even six listens in, this record offers few easy hand-holds. [Apr 2015, p.88]
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Mar 17, 2015It’s not all bad, but one can’t help but think that this fifteen-track recording is a long album for someone with nothing to say.
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Mar 16, 2015What’s frustrating about Strangers to Ourselves is that Modest Mouse doesn’t need to wander so far afield on it, not when doing what they do best still works well here.
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Mar 16, 2015It can be heavy going, most notably on the headache-inducing demented circus polka of Sugar Boats (imagine Tom Waits covering Fucik’s Entry of the Gladiators), and a gateway song such as 2004’s Float On wouldn’t have gone amiss, but this is a solid enough return.
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Mar 12, 2015The lack of progression is a shame, as the album’s chief lyrical theme--mankind’s disregard for nature--is one that needs hearing.
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Q MagazineMar 12, 2015The genre pinballing can work--Brock pulls out his carney Tom Waits voice for Sugar Boats--but it's also uneven, unsteadying. [Apr 2015, p.94]
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Mar 19, 2015This band has never made an out-and-out bad album, but now it has made an uninspired one.
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Mar 19, 2015Flashes of contingent weirdness appear throughout the album, and the lyrics remain reliably sardonic, but the band surrenders too often to a prefab pop-rock idiom that isn't entirely their own.
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Mar 17, 2015Strangers is a fundamentally passable album.
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Mar 12, 2015Songs you'd expect to swell and boil over--which is what Modest Mouse are good at--often end up trudging humourlessly (Ansel, Be Brave), and things get far worse in the moments where humour is actually the goal.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 69 out of 84
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Mixed: 13 out of 84
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Negative: 2 out of 84
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Mar 19, 2015
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Mar 23, 2015
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Mar 19, 2015